


My Boys

by WrecklessImagine



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Angst, F/M, Family, Love, Romance, Smut, Sons, Stubborn Personality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-18 19:41:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 22,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7327681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrecklessImagine/pseuds/WrecklessImagine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the reader’s biggest secret comes to light during a full-throttle case, how will the team react?  Will they allow her to work emotionally compromised?  Will the team be angry with her from keeping such a big thing secret?  Will everyone understand her point of view?  But...most of all...will Spencer be able to set aside his bubbling emotions long enough to understand her actions leading up to this moment?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Revelation

You couldn’t think.

You couldn’t think, and you couldn’t breathe.

The only thing that kept flashing through your mind was the blood on their bedspreads.

Taking the stairs, two by two, you swing yourself around each level as you throw your shoulder into the door, barreling out into the hallway as you stumble on your feet, your body careening as fast as you can through the glass doors of the bullpen as your eyes flicker up towards the meeting room.

The bullpen.

Your place of residence for three years.

The meeting room.

Your place of briefing.

For _three solid years_.

“Y/N,” Spencer breathes, right at your side as you bound up the stairs.

“Put them on the screen,” you growl as you bust into the meeting room, your entire team turning to look at you with widened eyes as Garcia fumbles with the television remote.

“Put them on the SCREEN!” you roar, your fists clenched at your sides as you feel Spencer put a light, friendly hand on your arm.

“Y/N, just calm-”

“If you finish that sentence, Reid, you won’t have a tongue with which to continue talking,” you enunciate as you slowly pan your wide, crazy-eyed glare over in his direction.

His eyes were flickering over your posture as the cogs in his mind slowly begin turning.

“How did you know we had more victims?” Hotch asks, looking at you.

Begging you.

Giving you one last chance.

“Turn. The TV. On, Garcia.”

Hearing the pierce of the TV cutting on, you see the screen slowly come to life, your heart plummeting to your toes as your face begins to pale.

“Wilder...” you whisper.

As the team’s eyes flicker between the screen and you, their eyes taking in the distinct similarities between you and the young boy on the screen, you slowly watch as the picture pans out, revealing yet another boy...one with much darker skin and swollen eyes...sitting next to him.

To Wilder.

And you felt your knees quaking beneath you.

“He has them both...” you whisper, taking a step backwards as Rossi’s eyes pan back over to you.

“How old are these boys, Y/L/N?” he asks.

And there it was.

The question that everyone wanted to ask, but no one wanted an answer to.

“Se-...seven-...”

You couldn’t get your voice up under you enough to answer his question.

But Spencer continued to stare on at you, the pieces slowly falling together as he thinks back over the last year.

The last three years, really.

“You have a son,” he breathes.

The statement caught your attention.

“No, Spencer,” you whisper as you shake your head, turning your wet gaze towards his shocked face as you swallow hard, trying to stifle your fearful sobs.

“I have two.”

The realization both gave him clarity and knocked the wind directly from his lungs.

“Seventeen,” you say as you clear your throat, panning your gaze back around to your boss, “these boys-...”

Blinking as your hands begin to tremble, you draw in a shaky breath as Hotch’s intense glare falters lightly.

“...my boys...” you whisper desperately, “are seventeen.”

“But you’re only 32, Y/N...” J.J. trails off as she finally yanks her eyes away from the television screen.

“I know...” you trail off, your eyes locking back onto the screen as you watch your boys try to rip themselves from the chairs they were tied to.

“Y/N...?” Spencer croaks.

Panning your gaze over to him slowly, your heart palpitating in your chest at a rate you were sure a heart monitor would no longer be able to discern, you lock eyes with him as your stomach begins to flutter.

“I’m so sorry,” you whisper to him.

“You can’t work this case anymore,” Morgan butts in.

“And why not?” you hiss, whipping around to meet his stare as slouch your shoulders and bedn your knees.

You looked like a mama tiger, ready to attack.

“Because you’re emotionally compromised,” Hotch states.

“Those are my **boys**!” you roar, thrusting your finger out at the screen as your gaze locks onto Hotch, “I went through hell and back for those boys!”

“No one’s questioning whether or not you’re a good mother,” Spencer says.

“Shut up, Reid,” you say through clenched teeth, your eyes continuing to settle on Hotch’s face as you watch the emotions rampage through his eyes.

“If this was Jack...” you trail off.

But in fact, at one point in time...it had been Jack.

It had been Jack _and_ Henry.

And it was the first case you had worked with the BAU when you had arrived.

“Don’t be a boss now when all rules went out the window three years ago,” you murmur to him.

You could see that you had backed him into a corner.

Hearing your son wail out on the screen, you turn as you see Wilder’s head ripped backwards, his throat exposed as a man, shrouded by darkness, wraps his hand around his adam’s apple.

You felt the anger bubble up your throat.

“This unsub gives us 14 hours, Hotch...and we’ve already wasted one gathering and bickering on whether or not I’m going to work this case.”

Hearing DeShawn yell out for his brother made you physically sick.

You swallowed hard to keep yourself from vomiting all over your boss.

“I’m going to do this,” you state as you take a step towards Hotch, “with my badge, or without it.”

And as Spencer’s eyes grow wild behind you, his body shocked to its roots as he grazes his widened eyes over to his boss, you cock your head lightly as you lower your voice even more than you already had.

“So which is it... _Hotch_?”


	2. Damn Right

_“Mom?!” Wilder calls out as you open the door._

_“Ma!?” DeShawn calls from the kitchen._

_You loved coming home to the sounds of your boys yelling for you._

_“I’m home, guys!” you yell out, dropping the three pizzas off on the couch as they come barreling from different parts of the house._

_“Mom!” Wilder yelps as he throws his arms around your neck._

_“Hey there, sweetheart,” you coo, rubbing his back and holding him close just as you feel a pair of strong arms descend behind you, wrapping around both you and Wilder._

_“Ma!” DeShawn yells again, squeezing you guys tight as you begin to breathlessly giggle._

_“I missed my boys!” you squeal, letting go of Wilder as you ruffle his hair._

_“Moooooom...come on,” he complains._

_“As long as you refuse to cut it, I hold the right to floof it,” you smile proudly._

_“We missed you, Ma,” DeShawn smiles as you turn around and give him a massive hug around his neck._

_“I missed you boys, too. I’m so sorry I was gone for so long this time.”_

_Your heart ached whenever you had to leave your boys. Especially with this being the start of their last year of high school. So many things were happening in their lives. Wilder had gotten a scholarship for two paid-in-full years at one of the top culinary schools in New York, and DeShawn acquired a paid internship for the summer before his first year of college at a law school in NYC that would open doors for him to apply for scholarships he didn’t even think would be possible for himself._

_The three of you had come a long way from the old days._

_“Mom? Is that pizza for us?” Wilder asks, ripping you from your thoughts as you crane your neck to look up at your solid 6 ft. son._

_“Pepperoni and olives for you, three meat for DeShawn, and extra cheesy goodness for me,” you say as you walk over to the pizza, divvying them out as the boys plop themselves down in their respective seats in the living area._

_“Could we get something to drink?” DeShawn asks as you shake your head and roll your eyes._

_“Only if my pitiful sons find something good to watch on television,” you say as you chuckle, making your way for the kitchen as you begin to grab at glasses._

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So which is it... _Hotch_?”

As your boss stares at you intently, his mind weighing his options heavily, he sighs as he breaks the staring contest between the two of you, conceding defeat and shaking his head.

“You have to tell us everything,” he says.

“Not a problem,” you say as everyone begins to sit down.

But poor Spencer couldn’t rip his eyes away from you.

Turning slowly towards you, your gaze softens lightly as you watch him take in a deep breath through his nose.

“Not the time...” you whisper to him, shaking your head lightly.

You knew what he was thinking.

Nodding lightly, he finally moves for the first time since he had entered the meeting room, his eyes downcast at a folder put in front of him as he opens up the contents, bearing to him not only your life, but the lives of your sons.

“Just before I turned 15, I was raped,” you start.

Your entire team went silent as Spencer’s eyes stayed locked on the folder in front of him.

But you noticed his fingers weren’t moving along the page.

Nor were his eyes jumping across the pictures.

“When I made the decision to have Wilder, my parents were less than thrilled. I was raised in what most people would call a ‘high-society’ type of living, and...to put it simply...they wanted me to abort.”

“But you obviously didn’t,” J.J. interjects.

“No. And it got me banished.”

“They kicked you out?” Rossi asks incredulously.

“No. But I was relegated to a part of the house that no one usually went to. I raised Wilder by myself until I was 18, dropping out of high school and opting for an online GED program, and when I obtained it I moved out and never looked back.”

“So...who is...DeShawn?...” Morgan asks, looking down at the file as he scrolls across DeShawn’s full name.

“...wait...”

As your eyes lock onto Morgan, his stare slowly panning up to yours, he takes a shallow breath in through his lips as he says, “DeShawn’s your son, too?”

“Yes,” you breathe.

“How old were you when you had him?”

The delicateness of Spencer’s voice was hard for you to discern. Out of all of the things that could be running through his head, you were sure that the most prominent things were of disappointment.

“I didn’t. I adopted him when I was 20.”

It was the first time Spencer had moved since sitting down, and it was only to whip his head around to you as his helpless gaze stared up at you.

“You adopted another son at 20?” he asks incredulously.

“Yes...” you trail off, your eyes begging Spencer to understand as Hotch gets your attention.

“We don’t have a lot of time, Y/N,” he says lowly.

“Wilder and DeShawn were best friends in preschool,” you sigh as you close your eyes, “but DeShawn’s father was...well, he wasn’t the best father.”

“Bullet points,” Rossi urges.

Whipping your gaze over to him, you clench your jaw as you take in a light breath through your nose.

“Dad beat him up. Dad went to jail. Family didn’t want him. I became family.”

A brief bout of silence descends upon the room, until your eyes pan around and lock back into the screen that has now come back alive with the faces of your sons.

Wilder, his lip now open and bleeding, was sobbing as DeShawn, his eyes swollen shut and his forehead cut and bleeding, leans his head over and rests it on the side of Wilder’s face.

“Ma’s gonna find us,” DeShawn says.

Your eyes widened as they welled with tears.

“Did you know we had audio, Garcia?” Hotch asks sternly.

“N-n-...no, boss. No, I-I-I...I didn’t,” she stammers breathlessly.

“Ma’s gonna find us both,” DeShawn whispers reassuringly to Wilder.

“You’re damn right I am,” you whisper, your eyes dancing along the screen as the teams heads whip between the television and your face.

“You’re damn right I am.”


	3. Breaking Point

_Sitting at your desk as you sip your cup of iced coffee, you pick it up as the bottom of the cup splashed some of the condensation onto your shirt._

_“Shit,” you mutter to yourself, looking around for a napkin as you plop your coffee back down onto your desk._

_“Here,” you hear Spencer say, offering you a napkin in front of your face as you sigh and smile lightly up at him._

_“Thanks, Reid,” you coo, taking it from him as your fingertips brush his hand._

_The slight contact of skin caused his breath to hitch._

_For two years Spencer denied how beautiful you were. For two years he rolled his eyes at Morgan as his best friend picked on him about staring a little too long or rambling on a little too much while he was around you. For two years he shrugged off J.J. as she urged him to ask you for coffee, trying desperately to convince him that you had the same lingering eyes for him as he had for you._

_But today was the day, he had told himself._

_Today was the day he would finally ask you for coffee._

_Dabbing at the wet spots on your shirt, you yawn heavily as your eyes begin to water, the napkin coming up quickly to blot the tears out from under your eyes as Spencer catches your movement._

_“Y/N. A-are...are you alright?” he asks._

_“Yeah, Spencer,” you chuckle as you bring the napkin around to your other eye, “I’m fine. My eyes water whenever I yawn.”_

_“Are you not getting enough sleep?” he asks._

_“I suppose I could be getting more,” you muse._

_“Anything I can do to help?” he asks._

_“Not really. It’s not a bad thing that I’m not sleeping. I just...would rather spend the time doing what I’m doing rather than sleeping.”_

_“Sounds like fun,” Spencer muses as he smiles at you._

_“Very,” you smile before dipping your head back into your paperwork._

_“Y/N?” Spencer asks, causing you to flicker your gaze up at him as he faces you from his desk._

_“Yeah?” you ask as you dip your head back down and continue writing._

_“It’s almost lunch time,” he muses, “maybe we could go down the road together and get some more coffee. It’s by that sandwich place, so we could grab a bite to eat before heading back to work.”_

_As your pen stops writing mid-sentence, your back tensing up as your mind begins to whirl with the possibilities of what this could mean, the nagging sensation of your secret in the back of your mind keeps chirping at you from a distance._

_You have a family, Y/N._

_“Coffee and sandwiches...” you trail off._

_“Mhmm,” Spencer hums, his senses at an all-time high as both Morgan and J.J. have stopped around the corner, listening to every word of the conversation as their grins grow bigger and bigger._

_“He’s got this in the bag,” Morgan whispers._

_“They are gonna be so cute together,” J.J. remarks lowly._

_Your boys always come first, Y/N._

_“Thanks for the offer, Reid,” you begin, “but I really just need to finish my paperwork and get home. You know, to catch up on a bit of sleep.”_

_Spencer could feel the bit of confidence he had accrued that morning plummeting to his knees, making him physically sick as he stares at you in disbelief._

_Coffee and sandwiches._

_Caffeine and sustenance._

_The plan was practically fool-proof._

_And yet, here he was, looking like a fool._

_“Maybe next time?” you ask, flickering your gaze back to him as the question rips him from his mind._

_“Next time? Oh oh oh, yeah. Yeah, sure. Maybe sometime next week or somethin’,” he stammers._

_“Good,” you breathe, your heart slowing down as you dodge the head-on bullet in front of you._

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So...here’s what we know,” Garcia says as she moves out of the way of the bulletin board, “we know the unsub’s suffered a big loss in his life. Reid theorized that it was a loss he didn’t cope with, possibly surrounding a big moment in his life.”

“We also know,” she continues as she looks over tentatively at you, “that the unsub’s taking these kids to places he feels should be important to them.”

“Which makes this harder, because it means he doesn’t view life events in their lives as important, he views their life events as it relates to his life as important,” J.J. states.

“Meaning we’re dealing with a very self-centered unsub,” Morgan chews.

“Not exactly,” Rossi barges in, “if he suffered a loss and is still feeling the effects, it usually means he didn’t get past his grieving process. He’s relating to things in their lives solely on the basis of how important he feels they should be to them.”

“Like taking the first child to the run-down school, or the second one to the basement of that daycare facility,” you interject.

As everyone turns and looks at you, you puff out a breath of air and continue.

“Each place where the children were killed is another glimpse into our unsub’s life. If he’s taking them to places that are familiar to his past as well as the children’s, then he has been scouting them,” you state.

“Or has access to that information electronically,” Spencer adds.

“Either way, if we can figure out what scenario would be most likely to have occurred in this man’s life in these particular places, we can use that information to pinpoint some suspects without having any idea what he looks like,” you finish breathlessly.

“J.J. Morgan. You guys are on that task. List all the scenarios that would be important to a person as they relate to the venues in which the children were killed,” Hotch orders.

“On it,” J.J. says as she pats Morgan’s arm, Morgan following her out of the meeting room as they head for their respective desks.

“Hotch?” you ask as you furrow your brow, watching the television helplessly as your boys’ heads lull forward with exhaustion.

“Yeah?” he asks, his tone of voice settling a bit.

“Since we’re considering all angles...” you trail off as your eyes begin to water.

You couldn’t imagine how petrified your sons were.

“Go on,” Hotch urges.

“What if he’s taking them to places that do mean something to these children. Maybe...maybe these places hold some sort of...of fear for them. I mean...look at them...”

Motioning to the television screen, Hotch’s eyes flicker between you and the video feed as he furrows his brow.

“I don’t understand...” Hotch trails off.

“What if they’re in a place they know...a place that holds bad memories for them? I-I-I mean...the man isn’t anywhere to be seen in this video right now.”

You were grasping at straws, trying to give yourself any sort of hope.

Hope that was dwindling quickly.

“What if he’s taking them to places that frighten them in an effort to...to understand them better...or something?” you ask, your pleading eyes turning towards Hotch as you see his face soften in your weakness.

“Y/N...” your boss trails off.

“You think he’s trying to better understand these kids before he kills them?” Spencer spits.

But before Hotch could reprimand his out-of-control colleague, J.J. sticks her head back into the door.

“It’s a working theory,” J.J. adds, darting her head into the room as she shoots a disapproving glare towards Spencer.

He was angry.

And he had every right to be.

“Get this,” J.J. continues as her eyes slowly peel away from Spencer, “the places the unsub has had these kids does relate to them. In the first one, the abandoned school, it was the school that burned down. The sister being held had lost her brother in that fire.”

Clarity started to dawn on you as you swivel around towards J.J.

“And in the daycare facility, it was apparently shut down for a time because there was a girl that was given an unapproved medication and had a seizure,” Morgan states.

“Lemme guess...the girl that was killed was the girl that had the seizures...” Rossi trails off.

“Yep,” Morgan clicks.

“What about the third?” Hotch asks as his brow furrows deeply.

“Working on it,” J.J. breathes.

“Why did we not know this sooner!?” you shriek, losing your cool again as your chest begins to heave.

“Reid?” Hotch draws out.

Locking your eyes with the side of Spencer’s head, you feel your jaw clench together tightly as tears begin to rise in your eyes again.

“Had you fixated on your _job_ instead of trying to _bed_ me...maybe my sons would still _be_ here,” you glower at him as your eyes begin to ignite a fire behind your widening irises.

“Well maybe if we knew you had sons,” Spencer begins as he slowly stands from his chair, “then the FBI could’ve put protective detail on them like they did on everyone else’s children, and they would’ve been just fine!”

“It’s not my fault my sons are gone!” you roar as you take a threatening step towards the towering man.

“Well keeping them a secret during a time where they could’ve been protected didn’t help matters!” Spencer shouts.

“Be a better agent, _Reid_!” you shriek as your body begins to tremble.

“Then you be a better mother, **Y/L/N**!”

And as Spencer storms out of the meeting room, your jaw swinging low to the ground as hot tears of anger begin streaming down your face, you whip around to the screen as you hear Wilder howl out in pain again just as you see a blurry figure crack down on the side of his head.

“11 hours,” the hollowed voice says.

“He’s taunting us,” Rossi states.

And all you could do was lean up against the wall and sob.


	4. Eruption

_“Y/N!” Rossi calls out as he holds his arms out for you, “I’m so glad you could make it.”_

_“I wouldn’t miss your cooking for anything,” you smile, hugging him around his neck as he plants a delicate kiss on each cheek._

_“Come on it,” he says, ushering you through his front door as he escorts you to the kitchen._

_“Y/L/N! You made it!” Morgan says, a smile crashing across his face as he picks up a wine glass._

_“For you,” he says._

_“Bless you, my child,” you say lowly, making the room chuckle as Spencer’s eyes lock onto you._

_You were breath-taking. Your Y/C/H hair thrown up messily in a french twist as earrings dangle from your ears, accentuating the length of your neck as the gems flicker upon your Y/C/S skin._

_He loved watching your eyes light up as you talked with everyone in the room._

_“Alright. Who’s ready to assemble their plate?” Rossi asks._

_“I swear I do more work eating food here than I do in my own home,” Hotch muses lightly._

_“That’s because all you eat is take-out,” J.J. throws back at him, a sly smile crossing her cheeks._

_“Hey. I know how to cook a mean macaroni and cheese, thank you very much,” Hotch boasts._

_“Maybe one day you can make it for us!” Garcia chimes in._

_“He’s gotta get it from the grocery store deli first,” J.J. says through her giggles._

_The entire night was like that. Your boys were off with their friends for the weekend, and your house was incredibly empty. You sometimes made excuses as to why you couldn’t come to Rossi’s dinner parties, but since the boys were out you figured you would get out of your lonely, quiet home._

_The night was spent drinking good wine and indulging in good food, and as everyone’s spirits began to wind down, they parted off in couples or small groups as Rossi cued up some low music to waft throughout the house. Penelope and Morgan usually made their way out back to have one of their “if we’re not married by 40″ conversations, J.J. and Hotch always slouched off into a corner, murmuring lowly about kids and familial dealings._

_How you could relate to those more than they realized._

_Usually it was you and David talking the evening away as Spencer slipped away, but this night was different._

_This time, you found Spencer standing next to you, your eyes looking out past the window at the twinkling stars in the sky as you hold your wine glass close to your lips._

_“You look incredible tonight,” he muses lightly as a light smile peels across your cheeks._

_“Thanks, Spencer,” you say lightly._

_“You haven’t come to the past couple of dinners. I wasn’t really sure if you’d come to this one.”_

_“Well, I didn’t realize have a reason not to this time,” you muse, flicking your gaze over at him quickly before looking back out the window._

_“It’s really nice to have you here,” Spencer says lowly._

_You felt him take a light step towards you, his body heat coming closer as you try your best to keep your attention out the window._

_“Look,” J.J. whispers, nudging Hotch as they both look your way._

_“You think he’ll finally ask her out?” Rossi asks, coming up to the pair as the three of them look on at the two of you quietly talking at the window._

_“He already has. Twice,” J.J. admits, “once for coffee and lunch, and then once again because she told him they could possibly reschedule for next week.”_

_“Did she actually say that, or did he interpret it that way?” Hotch asks._

_“No...she actually said that,” J.J. says._

_“And how do you know this?” Rossi asks, cocking his eyebrow in the air._

_“Morgan and I...may or may not...have possibly been around the corner while they were talking.”_

_The sentiment, as well as the mental picture, made Hotch curl his lips into his mouth in order to stifle his laughter_

_“Well...why is she turning him down? It’s obvious how she feels,” Rossi says._

_“I don’t know,” J.J. muses, “appearances, maybe? Job-related stuff?”_

_“Y/N, could I ask you something?” Spencer asks._

_“Sure,” you say, turning towards him as you become painfully aware of how close the two of you are standing, “you know you can ask me anything.”_

_“I just...I was thinking. Maybe-...maybe I’m not being clear with my intentions?”_

_You felt your face drop slightly as your heart begins that oh-so-familiar beat within your chest._

_“Clear with...what intentions?” you ask, trying to feign innocence._

_“Y/N,” Spencer says as he reaches his free hand out for yours, taking your delicate hand within his as his thumb begins to trace light circles along your skin._

_You felt your arm heat up at the sudden contact, and it took everyone you had not to flutter your eyes closed._

_“Will you allow me to take you to dinner?” he asks._

_Slowly dragging your eyes from your embraced hand all the way up to Spencer’s intense gaze, you are suddenly aware of your three teammates staring, their attention completely enraptured by the scenario playing out in Rossi’s home._

_You were about to break their teammate’s heart in front of their eyes._

_“Spencer, I-”_

_“Before you answer,” he says as he takes your wine glass from you, setting both his and yours on the window sill, “let me just say this.”_

_Taking both of your hands in his, he takes another step towards you as you close your eyes, willing your tears to stay at bay as the images of your sons continue to dance within your head._

_He won’t understand._

_He wouldn’t get it._

_He would never accept your family for what it is._

_You heard him speaking in the background, his voice pleading his case as you keep your eyes closed. You hear the desperation in his voice as he squeezes your hands, trying desperately to convey to you physically all that he cannot verbally. You feel his hands trembling with anxiousness and fear of rejection, once again, as the words tumble off the tip of a tongue that you wanted nothing more than to suck between your lips and trap there forever._

_But you couldn’t._

_“Spencer...” you breathe, proud of yourself for keeping your tears at bay as you open your eyes and slowly raise them to his._

_You were about to do irreparable damage._

_And yet, that didn’t stop you from doing it._

_“I can’t,” you whisper_

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“The only way to know is to re-watch the tapes.”

As everyone’s eyes pan towards you, Garcia looks up at you with pleading eyes.

“I won’t make you do it, Garcia,” you reassure her, “but the only way we’re going to know is if we go back and study the videos.”

“We don’t have that kind of time,” Hotch muses as he shakes his head.

“If I could have someone go through the tapes with me, I could help discern emotions while someone else catches the nuances in the background,” you state as your eyes slowly pan over to Spencer.

But he was still staring forward, his eyes blankly peeled onto the bulletin board.

“You can’t watch those tapes, Y/N,” Rossi muses.

“And why not?” you bite.

“Because you’ll be essentially watching what’ll happen to your sons,” Spencer glowers.

“I’m working this as any other agent would,” you bite, your voice getting louder, “as any other agent should.”

Your eyes were locked onto the side of Spencer’s head as he slowly pans it towards you.

“Spencer...” you breathe, his eyes connecting with yours as you finally take in the full-force of his hurt, your chest audibly heaves as his brow ticks ever so slightly in confusion.

“I know you hurt,” you say lowly, trying desperately to keep your tears at bay as you address him personally for the first time since Rossi’s dinner party two months ago, “and I know you’re confused. But your anger’s with me. Your hurt, Spencer...it’s with me.”

You weren’t aware yet of the tears plodding their way down your cheeks.

“Don’t take that out on my boys,” you plead, your wide, glistening eyes watching as Spencer slowly stands to his feet, his chest heaving slowly with his broad breath as he finally speaks to you directly.

For the first time in two months.

“Did you not think I would love them?” he asks.

But all you did was continue to stare at him.

“Did you-...did you think I would somehow judge you? For...for the decisions you made in your life? For what happened to you?”

You continued to blink rapidly at him as you listened closely, for the first time in months, to the words coming from his lips.

“Did you not think that I could love you...not...not despite those circumstances...but **because** of them?”

His breathless pleas knocked the wind from your lungs.

“Did you think that I would see you as damaged goods? A-a-as...as someone’s...pathetic _left_ -overs!?”

“Reid...” Hotch warns, his voice lowering in a protective state as your eyes widen at how loud Spencer’s voice is booming.

“Did you think that I’d see your stretch marks, or loose skin, or whatever it is you hide under these baggy shirts you always wear, and think you were disgusting!?”

“Reid, just calm-”

But Morgan’s pleas did nothing to calm the agent’s frustration.

“Did you think that I would see you the way you see yourself!?!” he yells at you, causing you to take a step back from him as you hiccup with a sob for the first time since barging into the BAU two hours ago.

You found yourself utterly speechless.

“Well!?” Spencer shrieks, throwing his arms in the air as he stares at you with wild eyes.

“Yes...” you whisper lowly, bringing the back of your hand up to wipe quickly across your cheeks, “Yes. I did.”

And as Spencer drops his arms to his side, shaking his head at you as he snickers incredulously, he grabs his messenger bag as he tosses it over his shoulder and darts for the door.

“Reid!” J.J. calls after him.

“She comin’!?” Spencer calls back, thrusting his arm sharply out at you as you stare down at your feet.

Oh, what a mangled mess you had created.


	5. Familiarity

_Grabbing a pot and a wooden spoon from the kitchen, you open up the basement door as you stand in the kitchen, banging on the pan as you yell down the hallway._

_“Get up, boys! Full day ahead!”_

_Yodeling down the hallway as you hear your sons begin to cry out, you giggle to yourself as you toss the pan and spoon onto the kitchen counter._

_“You got a half an hour to get ready!” you yell._

_“Mooooooom!” Wilder groans loudly from his room._

_“Get up, big boy!” you call down to DeShawn._

_“Food...?” he croaks weakly up to you._

_“Always, sweet cheeks,” you smile as you walk away from the basement entrance._

_“Your time starts...now!”_

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Spencer speeds through the majority of the first few hours of the tapes, you always stop on the last few minutes, watching through the death of these children that this man seemed hell-bent on showing your entire team.

Listening with open ears as you crank up the sound system in Garcia’s lair, you watch the screen for any signs of movement besides the knife protruding from the dark and slicing the throats open of these crying, fearful children.

And as you approached the last video, without Spencer giving you so much as a heads-up to whether or not he’s located anything, you put your head in your hands as he stops on the last few minutes just before the killing of your most recent child victims.

Hearing Spencer reach out and hit the space bar, you whip your gaze up as you look at the screen.

The sobbing girl, her neck craned back as the knife skirts halfway across her neck, prompts your hands to fly to the keyboard as your eyes widen.

“What is _that_?” Spencer questions.

Enlarging the picture of the figure in the background, your skin begins to stand on end as your fingertips fly across the keys, entering commands that range from cropping the screenshot to enhancing the image.

It wasn’t much, just the shadowy figure of a nose and what looked like a very faint jaw-line.

But the eyes...

The wide, _desperate_ eyes...

Hitting the print button, you stare at the screen as the realization dawns on you.

Desperation.

Desperation like that isn’t usually found in unsubs.

Hearing Spencer get up from his chair, he grabs the piece of paper before it flutters to the ground and heads for the elevator, leaving you in the room alone to stare at the screen.

Those eyes...

Something was off about those eyes.

And it bothered you that you didn’t know what.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_“So!?” you say as the three of you sit out in front of the ice cream parlor, “How was it!?”_

_“Today was awesome, mom,” Wilder says, stuffing his mouth full of rainbow sherbert ice cream as DeShawn slurps on a massive double chocolate milkshake._

_“Who knew Ma liked water-parks??” DeShawn exclaims._

_“Did you see her face going down that open waterslide!?” Wilder laughs._

_“Man, you shoulda seen your eyes, Ma,” DeShawn says as he takes another long pull from his milkshake, “you were buggin’.”_

_“Hey, you two wanted me to do it!” you squeal as you take another bite of your chocolate-dipped ice cream cone._

_“You coulda said no!” DeShawn says through his laughter._

_“Anything for my boys,” you smile as you take another bite of your cone, the piece of hardened chocolate leaving a trail on your chin as it plops into your lap._

_“Anything for my boys,” you muse as you pick it up with your fingers and pop it back into your mouth._

_Looking at the chocolate on your fingers, you eye Wilder out of the corner of your eye as he stops his spoon mid-bite._

_“Don’t even...” he warns._

_“Don’t what?” you ask in an innocent voice as you creep your fingers close to his face._

_“Don’t you dare!” he yelps as you dart your chocolate-covered fingers out, swiping it across his cheek as he grimaces._

_“Gotcha!” DeShawn yells as he covers his mouth and laughs._

_But before he could react you had smeared more chocolate on your fingers and reached over to swipe his face._

_“Oh, noooo!” DeShawn says as he leaps up, causing you to fall over on the bench as you leap to your feet._

_“Duuuuuuped!” he yells as he runs away from you, his milkshake straw between his lips as his long legs take large strides away from you._

_“I’m gonna get you!” you roar, chasing after him as Wilder laughs from the bench seat._

_“Try your best, Ma!” he roars with laughter, dodging your every move in the parking lot of the ice cream hut._


	6. Chapter 6

As Spencer bursts back into the bullpen, the paper wafting in his hand, he strides over to Hotch as he slams it onto the desk.

“What’s this?” Hotch asks.

“Where’s Y/L/N?” Morgan interjects.

“The unsub leaned too far into the last killing,” Spencer points, ignoring Morgan’s question, “that’s his face.”

As Hotch picks up the picture, his eyes studying it closely, he thrusts it to Garcia as his eyes glare one more time at Spencer.

“Get a general sketch using these features and get it running through a facial recognition program,” he orders.

“Reid. Where’s Y/L/N?” Morgan enunciates.

“I don’t know. Probably still in Garcia’s computer room still or something,” he throws out.

“Kid. Look. I get it. You’re mad because she hid this from you. But Reid…she hid this from all of us. None of us knew she had kids,” Morgan reasons.

“You mean to tell me none of you knew!? Even Hotch!? Who has to approve her health insurance paperwork!?”

“I don’t do that anymore. Haven’t for a while. I send it all down to HR now,” he states.

“None of us knew she had kids!?” Spencer yells with his arms thrust out.

“Spence…” J.J. coos.

As he whips around to her, his face wide with anger as he bends his torso towards her, J.J. crosses her arms across her chest as she sighs heavily.

“You’re being selfish,” she states.

“Sel-…selfish!?” Spencer stammers. “I’m being selfish.”

“Yes,” she states as she uncrosses her arms, “Y/N gave us the rundown of her life story. Reid, she was raped. And she kept the child. And her parents disowned her. Then she adopted an abused child out of the goodness of her heart, and now? Now her sons…the two things she cherishes most in the world, are…”

Looking at her watch, she blinks back tears as she raises her gaze back to Spencer’s face, which was now finally beginning to soften.

“…10 hours away from being killed,” she chokes.

“And you’re so preoccupied with your broken heart that you aren’t stopping to think about why she did it in the first place,” Rossi says, stepping up to the plate as tears rush down J.J.’s cheeks.

“She told you why?” Spencer asks as he looks over at Rossi.

“No. But do you remember the first case she worked with us?”

Everyone gathered around Spencer as the slow dripping of realization spread across his face.

“Jack and Henry…” he muses lightly to himself.

“She came in for interview moments before J.J. and I were notified that Jack and Henry had been taken,” Hotch says, stepping in front of Spencer as his disapproving glare burrows into the middle of his eyes, “and before she was even hired, she offered to help find them…whether or not she had the job.”

“Coming into something like that as a mom…especially with everything she’s already been through…?” J.J. trails off.

“She kept them a secret to keep them safe,” Rossi states.

And as silence descends upon the conversation, Spencer’s cogs fire back up again.

“Wait…say that again?” he asks, whirling back around to Rossi as it dawns upon his conscious mind.

“Oh god,” Rossi murmurs.

“’She kept them a secret to keep them safe.’ That’s what you said,” Spencer quotes.

“That’s what you said!” he shouts as he drops his messenger bag to his side, his legs dashing him back through the doors of the bullpen as Rossi starts after him.

But Rossi was caught on his shoulder by Morgan.

“What just happened?” Morgan asks.

“She kept them a secret, Derek. From us. If she can keep them a secret from us-”

“...the unsub knows her,” J.J. states with wide eyes.

But Spencer was already crashing through doors, running as desperately as his legs would carry him to get to Garcia’s lab as he throws his body through the open door and into the room.

But all he was met with was an empty seat and a mugshot pulled up on the screen.

Scurrying to the chair, he sits down to take a look at the screen as he yelps, jumping up from the cushion of the chair as his eyes settle upon the objects he had sat upon.

And his heart began to flutter in fear for your life.

“Reid!” Rossi pants as Hotch and Morgan lean in behind him, “She down here?”

“No…” he murmurs lowly, his torso standing up as he holds your badge and gun in the palms of his hands.

“We have a problem,” Spencer muses, his eyes connecting with his boss as Hotch clenches his jaw.

“We have a _serious_ problem.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_“High-oo, mommy!”_

_As you push Wilder higher in the swing, DeShawn grasping onto your pant leg as he shakes against your skin, you bend down and take his shoulders as you find his teary gaze._

_“What is it, sweetheart?” you ask, brushing your thumb across his bruised cheek as you wipe away his tear._

_But DeShawn didn’t answer._

_“You know you can talk to me, right?” you ask lightly as you try to hold his gaze within yours._

_“Th-th-…thank y-…you foh-w…taking me…to the…th-th-the pawk.”_

_But you could tell by the way he was shaking that he was scared._

_“Sweet cheeks, if you don’t want to be here, we can go home. Or we could go see a movie, or maybe get some food?”_

_You watched his face for any change in emotion as you feel Wilder scamper up beside you._

_“Wuh-s wrong wif Dee?” Wilder asks._

_“I don’t know, baby boy,” you say as you wrap your arm around your son._

_“What do you want to do?” you ask him, his teary gaze finally panning to meet yours as he suddenly throws his arms around your neck, squeezing you tight as tears begin to form in the back of your eyes._

_“Can I…call you ‘mommy’…like Wee does?” he asks meekly in your ear._

_And as you feel your jaw trembling against the little boy’s shoulder, you see Wilder slip his arm around DeShawn as you hold both of your sons tight to your chest._

_“You can call me anything you want,” you whisper into his ear, planting a firm kiss onto his cheek as he nestles closer into your body._

_“Ma?” DeShawn asks, looking up at you after a few minutes of hugging in the middle of the park._

_“Yes, sweet cheeks?” you smile at him._

_“Can we go get fwench fwies?” he asks sweetly._

_“Oh, you want french fries, do ya?” you ask as you wrap your arm around his neck and bring him in for a kiss on his forehead._

_“I think we can manage french fries,” you say as you let go of your boys, feeling them each take your hand as you begin to slowly weave your way back to your car._


	7. Clarity

Racing in your car down the highway, you careen off of an exit as you switch the SUV’s flashing lights off, taking a sharp left turn as you continue into town.

It had only taken you moments of true clarity to figure out why those eyes had seemed so off.

And it was because they were familiar.

Pushing the speed limits as you continue to weave your way through the city, the town gives way to older homes, some with the siding peeling off of them as apartment complexes and condemned houses start to litter the sides of the roads.

You had made this drive far too many times to ever be able to forget it.

Feeling your fingers grip the steering wheel, your mind flashes back to the shaded picture of the man’s face mid-swipe across that poor girl’s throat.

Those eyes.

Those desperate, _familiar_ eyes.

You had looked at those eyes everyday for the past 13 years.

Turning down the last road, you cut the lights off on your vehicle as you inch the SUV closer and closer to the house.

The house at the end of the road.

The house that DeShawn was born to.

_“...the unsub has them somewhere that pertains to pain.”_

Your own voice ricochets through your head as you mentally chastise yourself over and over again for not seeing it sooner.

For not realizing he had been released.

For not realizing he had your children...

Pulling up to the house, you pull the SUV into the driveway as you cut the car off.

_No going back now._

Opening the car door as you round your way to the trunk, you throw it open as you grab the crowbar you had picked up on your way to sign out the SUV before reaching for the recorder that caught your eye.

If you were going to do this, you had to make sure they were taken care of.

Picking it up and making sure it had a tape in it, you rewind it and press the record button, your voice lowly murmuring into the speaker as you begin to rattle off your last will and testament.

“I, Y/F/N Y/L/N, being of sound mind and body, do hereby give full and complete guidance and medical decisions of my two songs, Wilder Y/L/N and DeShawn Y/L/N, over to Dr. Spencer Reid of the BAU. My estate, along with my accounts, that total in excess of $300 million dollars, that was bestowed upon me upon the death of my parents, with no other siblings to claim property...I give this estate to split equally between my two sons once they reach the age of 18. Until such time, Dr. Spencer Reid of the BAU is in charge of all decisions regarding the estate, under the assumption that any decision made shall have the input of my sons, no matter the age.”

Clicking the recorder off, you set it in the middle of the trunk as you leave it open, your hand tossing the crowbar in the air as it flips before landing in the palm of your hand, your fingers wrapping around the cool metal protrusion as your eyes slowly meander up to the front door of the home.

Hanging wide open.

It wasn’t open when you had pulled into the driveway.

“Ring around the rosie...” you begin to lowly sing to yourself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_“Pocket full of posies!” the boys call out as they twirl around in the yard._

_“Ashes! Ashes! We all fall DOOOOOOOWN!”_

_As the plop down into the muddied mess that is the middle of your backyard, you watch your 7 year old boys roll around before running through the sprinkler, their bathing suits changing colors as the water washes away the mud they had just rolled in._

_You giggle as you shake your head, flicking your gaze back down to your sweet potatoes as you continue to peel them over the sink._

_“Wait until I tell them what that song’s about,” you murmur to yourself._

_Hearing the doorbell ring, you look up once more to the boys clasping hands, their voices ringing out loud for the entire neighborhood to hear as they begin to spin around again in the big mud puddle they had created._

_“Ring around the rooooosiiiiiiiiiie!” they begin to howl._

_Wiping your hands off on your pants, you shuffle towards the door as you swing it open, looking at the FedEx man in confusion as he hands you a slim envelope._

_“Just need a signature, ma’am,” he says, nodding politely to you as your eyes widen at the parcel in your hand._

_It was here._

_It was finally here._

_Signing frantically, you bid the man a half-hearted goodbye as you close the door quickly behind you, running back to the kitchen as your eyes look out over your boys once again running through the sprinkler._

_Two years._

_Two years it had taken to get to this moment._

_Ripping the envelope open, you dip your dripping eyes down as you slowly pull the official paperwork from its container, your lip quivering with tears of joy and your chest heaving with sobs of relief as you read the very first paragraph on the embossed letter._

_“In accordance with the adoption laws of your state, I am extremely pleased to inform you that the Council has approved your application for adoption for one (1) DeShawn Miller Sullivan.”_

_And as your watering eyes look back up at your boys, twirling around once again in the yard as you bring your shaking hand up to your mouth, you bend over the sink as you lay your forehead in the crook of your arm, sobbing with much effort as you hear them shout out their favorite nursery song._

_“Ashes! Ashes! We all fall DOOOOOOWN!”_


	8. Outrage

Racing down the highway as Spencer leans heavily into the car door, Morgan hears Hotch come on the radio as Spencer’s terrible gut feeling is confirmed.

“We’re headed in the right direction. Garcia says she can hear Y/N’s voice on the camera feed.”

“ETA?” Morgan yells out desperately, his hands white-knuckling the steering wheel as he watches his boss’s SUV careen towards an exit on the highway.

“Still 10 minutes out,” Hotch says.

“Even at this speed!?” Spencer shrieks.

“Don’t worry, kid,” Morgan reassures him as the SUV’s barrel down the exit ramp, “we’ll get to ‘em.”

“How could she not have known he was out?” Spencer asks as Morgan follows Hotch’s lead in taking a nasty left turn into the small, dilapidated town.

“There’s nothing telling us she didn’t know,” Rossi grunts out, hanging onto Spencer’s headrest as Morgan continues to weave through traffic.

“He should’ve been a top suspect the moment her kids went missing!” Spencer exclaims.

“Hey! Kid!” Morgan bellows as he sees Hotch slam on his breaks, following suit as everyone lurches forward in the car, “You’ve ridden her enough. Either find the reasoning we all have to support her, or stand back while we do the rest. Because right now? You’re not helping.”

As Morgan shoots Spencer a glowering, predatory stare, Spencer sighs heavily as Morgan follows the rest of the team quickly into a run-down, abandoned neighborhood.

“I know you’re heart-broken, Reid,” Rossi adds as Hotch makes his last left turn towards the house, “but she did this all for good reason. She protected her kids and, in turn, kept you from dating someone she felt was damaged beyond any reasonable woman she thinks you should be with.”

“She finds herself too damaged...?” Spencer asks breathlessly.

“Isn’t it _obvious_ at this point?” Rossi asks incredulously.

“Guys, we’re at the right place,” Hotch says over the radio as he cuts off his lights on his SUV.

And just as Morgan followed suit, a piercing sound cut through the eerie nighttime sky draped over the abandoned neighborhood.

“Ma! Please! **Noooooooo**!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Slowly stepping foot into the house, the crowbar swinging at your side as you slowly close the front door behind you, you give your eyes time to adjust to the darkness as you think back to the videotape of your boys, trying to discern any credible clues as to what room they could possibly be in.

But the only one that made sense to the profile was DeShawn’s nursery.

Slowly walking through the house, the floorboards creaking under your feet as your senses switch into their hyper-awareness, you hear a thunderous crack just before DeShawn cries out.

“Dad! No!”

Picking up your pace, you swing around the banister and barrel up the steps, taking the two by two as you roar out into the house.

“Get your hands off of my son!” you roar, stopping at DeShawn’s nursery room as you cock the crowbar back, barreling it into the doorknob as the door flies open.

But when you looked into the room, you saw absolutely nothing.

Continuing down the hallway, you hear the faint whimpers of DeShawn, your heart clenching in your chest as tears begin to brew behind your eyes.

“I’m coming for you, big boy!” you yell out into the house, met only with the echoes of your own promises.

“Ma! Help!” you hear DeShawn cry out, your head turning back as you throw yourself back down the stairs.

The basement.

He had those boys in the basement.

Throwing open the basement door, you look down at the light trail of blood, dried and cracked, on the cement stairs as you feel the anger bubble within your blood.

You were going to kill this man.

Slowly descending the stairs, you hear the muffled sounds of what sounded to you like Wilder, your breath shuddering lightly as they finally come into view.

Wilder, bound to a chair, his dislocated jaw hanging haphazardly from his face, was moaning in agony as DeShawn, his left eye swollen shut and his nose and lips bloody as he struggles against his own restraints.

“Wh-wh-who...who’s there!?” DeShawn calls out, his voice trembling as tears begin to stream down your cheeks.

“It’s me, sweetie,” you coo, trying to keep your motherly instincts at bay as your eyes dart around the darkened basement.

You heard Wilder groan in pain, and it made the vomit rise to your throat.

“Where are you, you blatant coward?” you yell into the room.

You were pretty sure Garcia could hear you at this point on the tape.

And you didn’t care.

“What? You think I didn’t know that you were out of prison? Alive and well and settling back in the area?”

But all you were met with were the sobs of your sons.

“You think I wouldn’t keep tabs on my son’s nightmare?”

“He’s not your son,” a voice rises from the darkness, causing both of your boys to wince as you grasp your crowbar tight.

“Well he most certainly isn’t yours,” you spit, taking another step towards your boys...and the voice.

“You **took** him from me,” the grown man growls.

“Like he took your wife from you?”

You knew that that was the issue. You knew that he blamed DeShawn for the death of his wife. Dying in childbirth is never the infant’s fault.

But not to this man.

“I’ve forgiven my son for his indiscretions,” he man says.

You finally saw the outline of a body emerge behind your boys.

It was all you could do to keep your voice steady.

“You really do blame him, don’t you? A 7 lb 9 oz infant...for the death of your wife. She chose to carry him to term. She chose-”

“You know nothing about my wife!” he roars, scaling quickly around the boys as his tall, broad form appears quickly in front of you.

“I know she knew about her cancer!” you roar, cocking your crowbar back as you whip it around, connecting with his stomach with a resounding thud.

“I know she chose to carry him to term instead of abort him and seek treatment!” you roar, kicking the man in his face as he’s doubled over, clutching his stomach.

“I know that she **loved you**!” you yelp as you bring the crowbar down on his back, “And I know that she _loved_ DeShawn!”

You wrap both of your hands around the crowbar as you slowly raise it over your head.

“And I know that she trusted you with his life...” you growl, pausing the crowbar up above your head, poised and ready to bring it down into his skull and feel his blood trickle up under your boots as your animalistic motherly instinct cries out for vengeance.

But it was DeShawn’s shrieking cry that pierced you...down to the deepest, darkest, most vengeful depths of your being.

“Ma! Please! **Noooooooo**!”


	9. Culmination

As Spencer opens his car door, Morgan still in the process of slowing down the vehicle, he quickly unlocks his seat-belt and goes barreling towards the house, with Hotch quickly at his side as his boss shoves his cell phone back in his pocket.

“Garcia?” he asks him breathlessly as he draws his weapon, his foot raising up as he kicks the front door in.

“FBI!” Hotch roars into the house as he clicks on his flashlight.

“Yes,” Hotch says in a lowered tone of voice.

“W-wh...wel,l what did she say!?” Spencer harshly whispers at his boss as Morgan flies up behind them, gun drawn as he moves to the right, clearing the rest of the downstairs rooms.

“Garcia thinks their in the basement,” Hotch says as he eyes a door hanging open.

“FBI!” Hotch roars again as he shines his flashlight down the stairs.

But when Spencer quickly descends the stairs, his eyes settling on the sight of you poised, ready to bash this man’s head in, he aims his weapon not at him...but at you.

“Ma!” DeShawn shrieks again as his father groans at your feet.

“Ma...don’t be like him...” DeShawn begs.

All of the words...words of love and comfort...words of devotion and reassurance...they were all replaced with spit-fire words of fury and fear.

“He took you two...from your _beds_...” you glower.

“Y/N...?” Spencer asks lightly, his gun trained on you as you slowly pan your head towards your colleague.

“Really, Reid? You hate me so much you’re willing to kill me over him?” you ask, nodding your head to the man at your feet.

“I don’t hate you...” he says desperately, shaking his head as Hotch stays in the shadows, training his gun on DeShawn’s father in case he makes a move for any one of his teammates.

Or your sons.

“Save your heroic speech for someone who cares,” you lull, turning your head back to the man at your feet.

“I won’t let you kill him,” Spencer says as he takes another step down the stairs.

“But you were willing to let him kill my sons, right?” you ask, whipping your head back towards a blind-sided Spencer.

“You were willing to place your tender, broken heart in front of the well-being of my boys. _Right_!?” you ask, your voice getting louder as Wilder groans again in the background.

“You were willing to place your selfish, _hurt_ little feelings in front of figuring out how to save my sons’ lives... **right**!?” you bellow.

“And now!?” you shriek as you turn your entire body towards him, your thought process scattering itself across the continents of your mind as you slowly lower the crowbar from above your head.

“Now you’re willing to shoot me instead of the serial killer who has ripped apart 7 different families! All in the name of trying to get _his_ **back**!”

And it was then, at your weakest and most vulnerable, that DeShawn’s father made a move for you.

Flying up faster than anyone would have assumed possible for a man his size, he hits you in your stomach, causing you to gasp for air as DeShawn yells in the background, his voice growing hoarse as he begs his father to let you go.

And just as your head made contact with the solid wall, you hear multiple gunshots ring out, your body hitting the ground with a thud as you feel the warm, thick blood that you were so intent on drawing just moments before of your own volition trickling up under your legs as you pan your gaze over to the source.

DeShawn’s father, his eyes wide open and his jaw unhinged, his lifeless stare wildly accusing you of taking his son from him as your emotions finally begin to regulate themselves.

Murderer.

You almost became a _murderer_.

Scurrying to your feet as you fly to your boys, you make quick use of your hands, your tears blurring your vision as Morgan finally finds a working light, the illuminating presence flooding the room as realization hits your mind.

DeShawn.

He can’t see his father like that.

Ripping the last of Wilder’s bonds away, you stand up quickly, ready to throw your body in front of his line of sight until your eyes take in Spencer’s body fluttering a blanket he had found quickly over the dead, bleeding form.

“I’ve got it,” he says comfortingly, looking at you as his eyes glisten.

Hearing the paramedics traipse down the stairs, tears stream from your wide eyes as you help Wilder into their arms, the medics working with an IV and some pain medication as they try to discern all of the pain that has been inflicted upon him.

Your son.

Your little baby boy...

“Ma...” DeShawn croaks.

Whipping your head around, you drop to your knees as you begin to work at his bindings, freeing his appendages one by one before taking his face in your hands and planting a long, deep kiss upon his forehead.

“Hey there, sweet cheeks,” you whisper, your breath quivering as you try to swallow your sobs.

“Ma...” he croaks, throwing his weakened arms around you as you pull him close, your legs straddling his wide form (that he apparently gets from his father) as you rock slowly side-to-side, your 17 year old son sobbing into the crook of your neck as the blood dripping from his face begins to soak up in the fabric of your shirt.

“My big, _sweet_ boy,” you tremble, pressing another kiss to the side of his head as you feel a hand come down on your shoulder.

“The medics are here for him,” Spencer coos, squeezing your shoulder lightly as you nod against your son’s head.

“He kept insisting, Ma...” DeShawn whines.

“Who kept insisting what, sweetheart?” you breathe as Hotch appears behind your son, dipping into your line of sight as he puts his hand on DeShawn’s back.

“W-...Wilder.”

Furrowing your brow, you pull back as you cup your son’s face, lifting his bruised, swollen, bloodied face to yours.

“He kept insisting what?” you implore lightly.

“To hurt him. He-...he kept telling m-...my dad-”

“That man is not your dad,” you say sternly, “...your father, yes. But most certainly not your dad.”

DeShawn’s good eye finally peeled open, flickering up to you as you get off of his lap, standing in front of him as the paramedics begin to help you get him off of the chair.

“He kept telling my father to hurt him instead,” DeShawn says, your sobs finally wracking your body as the audible sounds of pain and fear finally begin to waft from your throat.

“Ma?” DeShawn asks as they begin to set him an IV.

“Ma??” he says a bit louder as they begin to move his gurney.

“I’m right here,” you soothe, reaching out and grasping his hand as your tears begin to drip down your neck.

“I’m right here, and I’m following the two of you to the hospital.”

“You can ride with us, Mom, if you want,” the paramedic tells you.

“Please, Ma...” DeShawn asks weakly.

“Alright, baby boy. Alright,” you say, turning your head to look back at Hotch as he nods for you to go.

And just as everyone was emerging from the house, the team watching you as you hop up into the ambulance behind your son, J.J. grasps Spencer’s arm as she yanks him over to the SUV you had driven here, the trunk door open as she holds the recording device in her hand.

“What, J.J.?” Spencer asks, slightly annoyed.

“You need to listen to this,” she urges, holding it out for him as the team begins to gather around.

“What’s this?” he asks as he takes the device in his hands.

“A lot of things,” she breathes as she tentatively looks over at Rossi standing beside her.

“But mostly?” Rossi interjects just before Spencer presses the play button, “it’s how she feels about you.”

And with a deeply furrowed brow, Spencer looks down at the device as he presses play, your voice wafting through the small speaker on the side as you begin speaking.

“I, Y/F/N Y/L/N, being of sound mind and body, do hereby give full and complete guidance and medical decisions of my two songs, Wilder Y/L/N and DeShawn Y/L/N, over to Dr. Spencer Reid of the BAU...”


	10. Hospital

Laying back on an elongated chair, your legs stretched out in front of you as a blanket drapes over your legs, you have each hand reached out, grasping your sons as you nod in and out of sleep.

The three of you had been in the same hospital room for three days, and neither of them had wanted to say anything.

Well, DeShawn was talking. Wilder was typing.

You were aware of the team coming and going, their hands landing upon your shoulders, your back turned to the door as you sit, nestled in between the hospital beds of your two boys.

You cried whenever you knew the both of them were asleep.

You couldn’t recall all of their sentiments. You couldn’t regurgitate the dealings with the other families that Hotch was filling you in on, or the offers that Rossi was making, or the questions that J.J. was asking.

You were having troubles just keeping up with your days.

All you _did_ know, was that in the flurry of voices you remember gracing your ears, not one of them was Spencer’s.

It wasn’t shocking.

But you still found yourself wanting him there.

Startling awake as you feel DeShawn begin to move underneath your hand, you whip your eyes open as you draw in a long, deep breath through your nose.

“Hey there, handsome,” you coo breathily, leaning up in your seat as DeShawn, for the first time since being admitted, opens both eyes.

“Didn’t mean to wake you, Ma,” he croaks.

The sound of his voice forced you to swallow your own joyful sob.

“You came for us,” he states.

“I promised you I would,” you counter.

“You did?” he asks, lobbing his head over to look at you as you feel Wilder stir under your other hand.

“I’m your _mom_ , DeShawn,” you say as you smile ever so lightly at him, “I will always come for you,” you whisper.

As Wilder groans lightly, the mechanism holding his jaw in place coupled with the wires keeping his jaw shut, DeShawn flickers his gaze over to his brother as you squeeze your other son’s hand.

“Rise and shine, Wile E. Coyote,” DeShawn jokes.

Feeling Wilder pull his hand from yours, his fingertips grace the keyboard in his lap as tears form behind your eyes as you watch his fingers dance along the keys.

“Ha...Ha...Ha...I get it. An “I can’t talk” joke. Original,” Wilder types.

You weren’t aware that Spencer was standing just outside of the door, peeking in at the three of you as he watches your every move.

Unbeknownst to you, Spencer didn’t follow you to the hospital. After listening to your voice spout your will over the recording device, he went straight back to your home.

The scene of the crime...

...and had begun to clean.

The cleaning was so necessary and so exorbitant that it had taken him close to three days to finish. Between throwing away the broken furniture, professionally washing the boys’ mattresses, throwing away and changing the sheets, scrubbing blood stains from the carpet, and finding a few pieces of furniture to fill some of the empty space in your home, he had just enough time to get back to his apartment and shower before coming to see how you and your sons were.

But he didn’t want to interrupt the interaction going on in front of him.

Sitting in silence with your boys as your gaze pans between the two of them, it’s Wilder’s typing that breaks the silence as your eyes dart over to the computer screen.

“How are you, Mom?” he types.

“Oh sweetheart,” you breathe as you try to keep your tears at bay, “I’m just fine.”

Leaning up from your chair, you stand to your feet as you lean over, pressing a light kiss to Wilder’s forehead as he smiles lightly.

“I’m so glad you’re alright,” you whisper into his skin.

Plopping back down into your chair as a yawn peels from your lips, it’s DeShawn’s voice that catches your attention this time as you turn your gaze to him.

“What do I do now?” he asks.

The defeated tone behind his words cut you straight to the pit of your stomach.

“Well,” you say as you cock your body towards him, “we get you better, we get you back to school, and then we get you off to your summer internship before college,” you muse lightly.

“That’s not what I meant, Ma...” he trails off.

Hearing Wilder type, the two of you whip your heads to the computer screen as his words begin to emerge.

“You be angry.”

Looking into Wilder’s eyes, his gaze imploring you along, his fingers begin to dance along the keyboard once more.

“Go on, Mom...tell him what you told me when I found out about my father.”

As Spencer furrows his brow, he shifts his posture as he leans up against the doorframe.

But his shifting caught the attention of DeShawn.

As your eyes stay hooked on Wilder, Spencer’s desperate stare locks onto DeShawn’s as your son studies the man in the doorway.

And then? DeShawn nods his head, almost as if the two had telepathically communicated.

“You be angry, DeShawn,” you start, panning your gaze slowly back towards your son, his dark brown eyes burrowing into yours as Spencer listens, and hangs, onto your every word.

“You be angry, and you cry, and you beat whatever pillow or punch whatever wall is necessary,” you continue as you shake your head lightly.

“And then? You pity him.”

The statement even startled Spencer.

“You what?” DeShawn asks.

Taking in a deep breath, you grasp his hand tightly as you blink, the tear slowly sliding down your sleep-deprived skin as you sniffle lightly.

“The man-”

Swallowing deep as you flicker your gaze quickly over to Wilder, you shake your head as you turn your attention back to DeShawn.

“Wilder’s father...” you begin slowly, “...a lot of things came out in court.”

“I-...I thought you didn’t have to testify?”

“Oh, I didn’t. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t keep up with things.”

Swallowing hard, you continue.

“A lot of abuse,” you breathe as flashes of that night blur your vision, “in his past.”

“So many... _wrong_ things inflicted upon him,” you breathe, shaking your head as your eyes sag with the weight of your tears.

“And while what he did to me, and the other women he raped...”

Flickering your gaze back over to a shocked Wilder, you watch his eyes widen as you bleed an apology through your eyes.

“...wasn’t right,” you begin again, “that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t battling demons of his own.”

“Your father, DeShawn. He was...he was 19 when him and your mother got pregnant,” you begin as your eyes lock heavily onto his.

“That woman was his _world_ ,” your breathe.

“H-how...how do you know?” DeShawn hiccups.

“Because I knew your mother,” you admit.

As you watch the surprise waft across his face, you feel his squeeze your hand rather than pull it away.

“You-...you knew my mom? How?” he asks.

“College,” you smile lightly.

“What...what was she like?” DeShawn asks, excitement rising in his voice.

“She was _loud_ ,” you say, leaning back in your chair as your hands fall into your lap.

“She was outgoing, and smart...and breath-takingly beautiful,” you breathe.

“I never met your father until she had gotten pregnant...” you trail off as DeShawn’s smile begins to fall from his face, “...but the way he doted on her? The way he always made sure she was never too hot, or too col. Never feeling sick...o-o-or hungry...”

You draw in a shuddering breath, your hands shaking in your lap as you close your eyes, trying to regain your composure.

“Your father came from nothing,” you start in again, “he worked two jobs to pay for his schooling, and dropped out completely to take a full-time job with benefits when your mother and him got pregnant.”

“When your mother found out she was sick...” you say lowly, leaning forward as you rub your arm up and down DeShawn’s forearm, “...your father begged her to seek treatment.”

“He didn’t want me...” DeShawn trails off.

“It wasn’t that he didn’t want you,” you urge as you squeeze his hand, “it was that he knew he couldn’t lose _her_.”

“That man lost his only rock...his only _fortress_...the day your mother died. And the man that raised you? The angry, abusive drunk that slept all day and drank all night? That man was the corpse of a hard-working, dedicated human that chose to die in his own loneliness rather than cope with his loss.”

DeShawn and Wilder’s cheeks were streaked with tears at this point as you fought back sobs of your own.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my career,” you urge, “it’s that even the most _disgusting_ of individuals were once nothing but victims.”

Spencer was still standing in the doorway, his hand over his mouth as his chest heaves with silent tears while absolute, unadulterated respect for you caused his heart to palpitate so loud he was sure you could hear it.

“So you pity the fool,” you say, furrowing your brow jokingly as you imitate Mr. T’s voice, causing a breathy chuckle to emanate from both Wilder and DeShawn.

“And then you show that bastard you can do it without him,” you finish.

And as you lean forward, your legs hoisting you up as you plant your lips onto DeShawn’s forehead, you work diligently to wipe away his tears just as you hear something slide lightly across the floor.

Craning your neck back, you see a small bag...the outside decorated with pinks and blues and yellows as you furrow your brow lightly.

“That’s my overnight bag...” you murmur, turning and stepping over everything as you make your way for the bag at the door.

Looking inside, you see more clothes, a few snacks, and some travel-size toiletries.

But behind you, Wilder and DeShawn were smirking at each other.

Coming across a note, you unfold it, your eyes scanning the handwriting that you recognized instantly as you bring your hand to your mouth as you slowly stand back up.

_Don’t worry about the house. It’s ready for you and your sons when you’re released. I stocked the kitchen and made sure all the stains were gone. I hope you can forgive me for the way I acted. I never meant to make you feel like your sons weren’t important. I was just shocked and hurt and worried for their safety. I didn’t know how to deal with the flood of emotions, and I’m sorry I took that frustration out on you. All I’ve ever wanted was to spend time with you. I hope you can forgive me._

_-Spencer_

But it was the “PS” at the end that caused your eyes to widen.

_P.S.: 300 million? That’s impressive._


	11. Back Home

The three of you were in the hospital for a week before you were released to go home. You had helped your sons into their wheelchairs, with a nurse helping you push them out to your car, where Rossi had been waiting.

He helped you all get settled in, all the while telling you about the freezer meals he had made, along with where to find the directions to reheat them whenever you guys were hungry.

You had hugged his neck tight, thanking him profusely before he left that evening.

You were still stunned at the cleanliness of the house.

You had called your boss, asking for some time off to take care of your sons. To get them healthy again, but Hotch had already put you in for three weeks, remembering back to the time he and J.J. had taken off with their boys during that case.

That fateful case three years ago.

The case you had initially come in on...

The first few days were fine. You ran back and forth between your sons, helping them to the bathroom or feeding Wilder food through a tube between his teeth.

You sat on your couch and cried in the evenings, knowing how hungry your son was and how there wasn’t a damn thing you could do about it.

But the exhaustion slowly began to wear on you.

Soon, the bags under your eyes began to wrinkle, and you could no longer keep your eyes open when you sat down, only to be startled awake whenever you heard an air-horn go off (one of the ways you gave the boys to get your attention in case you did fall asleep).

You needed help.

And you needed it bad.

“Ma?” DeShawn asks, limping into the room as you startle yourself awake from the couch.

“Baby!” you breathily state as you rise up from the couch, rushing over to his side as you grasp his arm, helping him to his chair.

“What are you doing up? Are you in pain? You should be resting, you and Wilder’s maximum missed school days are almost used up.”

“Ma...” DeShawn trails off as you reach for a blanket, settling it over his lap as you look up at him from underneath your reddened, haggard stare.

“Yeah, sweet cheeks?” you whisper, placing your hands on his knees as you crouch in front of him.

“You need help,” he muses lowly.

“I am perfectly capable-”

“Ma! Stop!” DeShawn croaks loudly.

“Sweetheart, you need to rest,” you coo as you stroke his leg.

“And you need to stop using us as a reason for delaying your own happiness!”

“What?” you ask breathlessly.

It was then that Wilder appeared from the hallway, stumbling in, still high on his pain medication, as you jump up and catch him just before he hits his knees.

“What is _wrong_ with you two!?” you yelp, helping your son to his respective chair as you grasp for another blanket, your chest heaving with exhaustion as tears spring to your eyes

You were so tired of crying.

“We **know** you like him,” DeShawn states as you tuck the blanket down into Wilder’s chair.

“Like who?” you bite.

“Spencer,” Wilder mumbles through his wired jaw.

“Wilder...take it easy,” you coo.

“ **No**!” he mumbles through clenched teeth, slamming his hands down on the arm rests of the chair as you look up at him, catching his wild gaze.

“You know he’ll come help...” DeShawn trails off as he eyes begin to droop from his medication.

“We aren’t an excuse anymore,” DeShawn lulls lowly as he lobs his head over to you.

It was then that you saw Wilder reach for something, thrusting it out into your vision as your watery eyes dart down to the object.

Your cell phone.

“Call him,” Wilder mumbles through his teeth.

It’s true.

For years, you used your boys as an excuse to put your love life on the back-burner while you took care of them.

Raised them.

Taught them to be independent.

But your boys were approaching graduation.

And soon they would be gone.

And your house would be empty of their sounds.

And their laughter.

And their cries for food...

Who would be there for you to come home to?

Who would be there for you to love...?

And mindlessly, almost as if your fingers knew what to do, you found yourself holding your cell phone up to your ear as the ringing of the phone cascades into your ears.

“Y/N?”

He picked up.

Spencer picked up his phone for you.

“H-...Heh-hey,” you say, clearing your throat as the tears begin to fall down your cheeks yet again.

“Are you alright? Is something wrong with the boys?” he asks frantically.

“No...I-I-I mean, yeah...yeah, they’re uh...they’re alright. Very...uh...very drugged.”

“Probably for the best. It’ll help them through the pain of recovery,” Spencer states.

“But I uh...I’m having some...some trouble...” you trail off.

“Y/N. Are _you_ alright?” Spencer enunciates.

“I’m tired. I just-”

You feel your voice catch in your throat as you raise your gaze up to your two sleeping boys.

“The nightmares,” you start, no longer trying to mask your tears, “they uh...keep me up. I uh...I’m having trouble taking-...taking care of...of my boys. Because I’m so-”

The hiccuping you were doing, trying to hold back your sobs, broke Spencer’s heart as he grabbed his go-bag, sending a text message to Hotch while you were still trying to regain your control on the other end of the line.

“You still there?” Spencer asks as he locks his apartment door behind him.

“Yeah,” you breathe, “yeah, I’m-...I’m still here.”

And then...after a bit of a pause...

“Spencer...can I ask you something?”

“You can ask me anything,” he coos as he bursts into the parking garage of his complex.

“Could you-”

_Why is this so hard?_

As Spencer shuts the door of his car, slinging his go-bag into the passenger seat, he sticks his keys into the ignition before setting his hand in his lap.

“I always used raising my sons as an excuse to put my love-life on the back-burner...” you trail off.

“When you have two boys to raise, it can be hard dealing with another one,” Spencer smiles.

The sentiment made you giggle.

_Truly_ giggle.

For the first time in almost two weeks.

“Spencer, could you-?”

And that’s when you heard it.

The loud cranking of an engine on the other side of the line.

“I’ll see you in 15 minutes, Y/N,” Spencer coos, backing out of the parking space as he inches his way towards the opening garage.

And there were those damn tears again.

Rolling down your face, blazing a trail long since memorized.

Your cheeks were going to stay permanently red if you didn’t find a way to quit.


	12. Collapse

Putting the coffee pot in the middle of the kitchen table as you set the two plates down, a sandwich on each plate with chips and salsa surrounding the sides, you rush to the door as you swing it open, revealing a proud Spencer with a luggage bag in his hand.

“Figured I could come stay for a bit. Give you a break, and all,” he soothes as he holds his bag up.

“Here, let me take that,” you say, gesturing for his bag as he rips it back from you.

“You look exhausted, Y/N,” he says, taking in your sunken in eyes and your lightly slumped shoulders, “just show me where I’m needed.”

In that moment, in your vulnerable state with your mind in a haze, you wanted to pat your heart, with tears streaming down your face, and tell him how much you cared for him.

But you settled for taking his hand and guiding him through the house to his room.

“This is the guest bedroom,” you say as you flick the light on, “it’s not huge, but you have your on ensuite bathroom. Wilder is right across the hall from you,” you say as you gesture out into the hallway, “and I’m just down the hall right before you hit the kitchen.”

“Where does DeShawn sleep?” he asks as he drops his bag.

“In the basement. He’s got his own room, bathroom, and little living area down there.”

“Sounds more like a miniature apartment,” Spencer chuckles as he follows you back out into the hallway.

“DeShawn, as he got older, started enjoying his privacy a bit more. Plus, Wilder likes to go down there and play video games on the television he has down there with his brother.”

“Sounds like fun,” Spencer smiles as you turn your head and shoot him a tired grin.

“They’re my boys,” you breathe as you turn the corner, showing Spencer your living area as the boys continue to snooze in their respective chairs.

“How long have they been asleep?” Spencer whispers.

“A little over an hour. They need to be cleaned up and moved to their bedrooms.”

As Spencer dips down beside DeShawn, his hand draping onto his forearm as he shakes lightly, Deshawn groans as he lobs his head over.

“Spenceeeeeer!” he groans lightly, “ _My_ man.”

“Hey there, buddy,” Spencer giggles, “we gotta get you downstairs and cleaned up.”

“You sayin’ I stink?” DeShawn asks playfully as he tries to stand up on his own.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Spencer says as he grabs onto a stumbling DeShawn, “lets take this nice and easy.”

Sighing in relief as you listen to Spencer slowly get him downstairs, you turn towards Wilder whose eyes have now finally opened themselves.

“You called him,” Wilder smiles through his wirings.

“He’ll be with us for a little while,” you smile as you dip down, helping him to his feet as he leans on you for support.

“I’m tired,” Wilder groans through his teeth as you turn into the bathroom.

“I know, sweetheart, but we put off your shower last night,” you say as you flip the water nozzles and get them going just as you hear them turn on downstairs.

“DeShawn is letting Spencer help him?” Wilder mutters in shock.

“He must really like him,” you muse tiredly as you turn to your son and begin helping him out of his clothes.

“Do you?” Wilder asks as you flutter your tired eyes up to his.

“Do I what?” you ask as you grab your son’s arm, helping him into his bath as he eases into it with his boxers on.

“Like Spencer, Mom...” your son groans as he rolls his eyes.

“It’s not that easy...” you rail off as you pour water down his back.

“Why are you so scared?” Wilder huffs between his teeth.

“Because I can’t just let any man around my sons,” you bite.

“You’ve already let him around us!” Wilder yelps.

“Calm down, sweetheart,” you coo as you whip your gaze up to him.

“No! Mom...you love him. I know you do! We both know you do! WE **ALL** KNOW YOU DO!!”

“Calm down, Wilder!” you roar, your eyes wild as tears begin streaming down his cheeks.

“My love life is not your call!” you yell as you stand to your feet, tears streaming down your son’s face as your body teeters with exhaustion.

“DeShawn and you have voiced, on numerous occasions, how you would feel about me being with Spencer. And you _don’t_ have to worry! I love that man with _everything_ I have! Everything I haven’t _already_ given to you boys! So quit acting like spoiled, drugged up **brats** , take your _damn_ bath, and go to bed, damn it!”

Feeling your chest heaving as your son cries in the bathtub, you hear a light knock on the door as you slowly turn your tired, haggard body towards the opening, only to see Spencer’s head sticking into the bathroom.

Great.

Just fucking grand.

“Want me to take over?” he asks lightly, his eyes flickering from you to Wilder and back again.

“No,” you bite...at the same time that Wilder says “Yes.”

“What?” you breathe as you whip your gaze back to your son.

“Yes. I want Spencer to help,” he grunts.

“Wilder-”

“I said...Spencer,” he glowers.

And as you shake your head, stepping out of the bathroom as you stumble down the hallway, you hear Spencer shut the bathroom door behind you as you collapse into one of the kitchen chairs, your face finding the palms of your hands as you begin to sob.

Again.


	13. Finally

“You should be easy on your mom,” Spencer says as he washes Wilder’s hair, “she’s been through a lot these past couple of weeks.”

“I know...” Wilder trails off.

“I’m just so tired of seeing her neglect herself for us,” Wilder breathes, “we’re grown up. We can take care of ourselves.”

“First of all, you’re _not_ grown up,” Spencer chuckles as he begins slowly washing the suds from your son’s hair, “you may _feel_ like it, but you’re not even a legal adult yet.”

At that sentiment, Wilder just rolled his eyes.

“ _Second_ , your mother almost lost the two most important people in her lives. She’s on edge, and hasn’t had a second to herself to process how she feels in all of this, because she went right from being a federal agent to being a nurse for her sons. She hasn’t had a chance to be a scared, tired mother yet.”

“I didn’t think about it that way...” Wilder trails off.

“I know. It’s why I’m telling you now,” Spencer says as he washes down Wilder’s back and chest.

“She loves you, you know,” Wilder mumbles.

“I heard...” Spencer trails off.

“Do you love her?” Wilder asks with hope in his voice.

“More than I probably should for someone who’s turned me down numerous times for a date,” Spencer chuckles breathlessly.

“You know she doesn’t mean it...” Wilder muses desperately.

“You and DeShawn seem very invested in this,” Spencer states as he furrows his brow, “why is that?”

Sighing as Spencer helps him out of the bath, he throws a towel around Wilder’s shoulders as Wilder sloppily dries himself off.

“It’s not just your mom’s happiness...is it?” Spencer asks as he dips his face into Wilder’s view.

“Don’t freak out, ok? But...my brother and I just think that...you’d make a really awesome dad. You know...to us, and the other kids I’ve heard mom mention from time to time.”

“Your mom talks to you about having other kids?” Spencer asks incredulously as he helps Wilder into his room.

“No. She just...talks to herself a lot at night. Not in a weird way...just...like she’s pretending another adult is there to talk to.”

The thought broke his heart.

You could’ve called him.

Spencer would’ve been honored to talk with you at night.

“She’s lonely. And her face lights up whenever your name’s mentioned when she’s talking about work and...DeShawn and I are leaving next year for college and she’s gonna be all alone...”

Spencer watched your son’s eyes well with tears as he helps lay him down in bed.

“You gonna shimmy those wet boxers off?” Spencer asks as he pulls the covers up to Wilder’s chin.

“Yeah...and take my pain medication, too,” he says as he nods to the laid out pills and cup of water.

“You’ve got a good mom,” Spencer muses as he reaches over and hands the water and pills to Wilder.

“I know,” he says as he scarfs them down.

“Then be easier on her,” Spencer scolds lightly, giving Wilder a stern look as your son snickers and hunkers down into his bed.

“Alright, _Dad_ ,” Wilder emphasizes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wiping at your tears as you hear Spencer approaching from behind you, you gesture at him to sit down as you finally cup your mug and bring the lukewarm coffee to your lips.

“What’s all this?” he asks as he sits down, eyeing the plate of food and the coffee mugs.

“Well, I owe you lots of things...” you start as you take another sip from your mug, “but I figured I’d start with a ‘thank you’.”

“It’s not a problem,” Spencer smiles as his eyes linger on your face.

“So...the dinner is a thank you?” he asks as he points to the plate.

“No. I remember something about a couple of turned down coffee dates and a sandwich that never got purchased.”

You saw a smile creep across Spencer’s face as he grabs for his mug and takes a long pull.

“Wow...” he exclaims as he pulls the mug back and looks down at the sugar-filled blackness, “this is really good coffee.”

“Thanks,” you smile as you pick up a chip and pop it into your mouth.

Eating in relative silence as you steal a few glances at Spencer, you clear your throat as you put your half-eaten sandwich down.

“I owe you an incredible apology,” you begin.

“You owe me nothing,” he says with a mouthful of food as he finishes off his sandwich.

“I treated you like crap instead of just telling you the truth,” you muse as you reach out for his knee, your hand settling on it as Spencer’s eyes trail down to the connection, swallowing his food down hard as his eyes slowly trail back up to your face.

“I mean, it makes sense,” he says as his voice jumps an octave from his nerves, “with the first case you worked with us and all.”

“It still isn’t an excuse,” you say lightly as you squeeze his knee.

Spencer felt his face flush at the sensation as he clears his throat lightly, reaching quickly for his coffee mug and taking a long pull from it.

Sighing as you finally pull away, you feel something wrap around your hand quickly as your eyes whip back over to Spencer, his hand darting out to grasp yours as he holds your stare desperately.

“Apology accepted,” he whispers as a slow, relieving smile crosses your tired cheeks.

“Thank you,” you breathe as you squeeze his hand, reluctantly letting go as you continue to eat your very late dinner.

“Did you struggle with the boys much?” you ask as you finish your sandwich.

“Not at all, but I can’t believe you’ve been doing this a week on your own. Those are _big_ boys,” Spencer exclaims lowly.

“Yes,” you giggle as you pop a chip in your mouth, “and they come with appetites to match.”

“I can only imagine,” Spencer muses as his eyes widen.

“One day you won’t,” you say before you can catch yourself, your bite of food pausing mid-air as your face flushes wildly.

“I just meant that...one day you’ll have a child...not with me, just-...in general, and-”

But Spencer’s low laughter interrupted your backtracking as you look over in his general direction.

And his laughter grew, and grew...

...and grew...

Until, finally, the two of you were laughing together for the first time, your faces flushing respectable shades of red as the two of you lean on your kitchen table for support.

“I’ve never seen you flustered like that,” Spencer smiles as he takes deep breaths, trying to calm his laughter.

“It happens more than I’d like to admit,” you breathe as you take deep breaths through your nose.

“I like this side of you,” Spencer admits lightly.

“What? The tired, haggard, haven’t-showered-in-two-days-because-I-almost-lost-my-sons side?”

Spencer reached out and brushed his fingers along your cheek, tilting your gaze back towards his as he scoots his kitchen chair forward.

“No. The caring, sacrificing, bumbling, embarrassed, love-without-strings side,” he muses lightly.

“I almost lost my sons...” you whisper desperately as tears climb to the forefront once more.

“But you _didn’t_ ,” Spencer says lowly as he leans towards you, his thumbs cleaning up your tears before they fall upon your face, “they’re here, and they’re sleeping, and they’re safe.”

“My poor boys...” you whisper as your chest begins to hiccup.

“Come here,” Spencer coos, pulling you from your chair and into his lap as you lay your head into the crook of his neck.

“My poor bo-hoh-ohys,” you sob, your body beginning to tremble as you feel Spencer’s arms lock tightly around your body.

And as you sit there, tightly wound within the arms of the man you love, you sob the frustration and fear and helplessness of the last two weeks into his skin as he rubs your back, his voice lilting sweet nothings in your ear as he lets you express yourself in the only way either of you deem necessary for the situation.

“I love you, Y/N,” Spencer murmurs lowly into your ear, “and I’m right here.”

“I-...love y-y-you, too...S-Spen...-cer...” you hiccup into his neck.

And even with your stuttering voice, it fell from your lips as naturally as your sobs.

Almost as if it had always been this way.


	14. The Kiss

Over the next three weeks, the medical appointments for the boys became overwhelming. You could never get them to align, setting alarms for each and every appointment they needed, and it got to a point where you were about to pull your hair out.

You wanted to be there at all of the appointments, for both of your boys, but you were paying more and more in “missed appointment” fees than you were food for them to eat.

“Just let me help. I can take DeShawn to his and-”

“No,” you state as you put your hand in the air, “I’m going to all of these appointments.”

“Y/N, you can’t keep up with all of them. No one could,” Spencer urges.

“Then I’ll just set more alarms!” you raise your voice, wagging your vibrating phone in your hand as you huff in frustration.

“Jesus...DeShawn has an appointment in a hour,” you groan, your body teetering from the frustration as Spencer grabs your shoulders and slowly sits you down on the couch.

“Let me take him. Just this once,” he pleads with you.

“No...I need to be there. For my _son_ ,” you emphasize.

“We’ll video-chat the appointment if you want,” Spencer says, rubbing his hands up and down your arms as you close your eyes and sigh, “so you can be there without having to lug Wilder with us.”

“I’m their _mom_ , Spencer,” you breathe.

“And they _know_ that,” Spencer says as he trails his hands down to your knees, “but you’re struggling. You’re mixing up their medications with the doctors they’re seeing and Y/N...that’s dangerous.”

“I know,” you whisper as you feel tears, yet again, rise to your eyes.

“I swear to _fuck_ I’ve cried more this past month than I have in my entire life,” you groan as you bring your hand up and wipe at your tears.

“Any way I can convince you to take a nap during his appointment instead of video-chatting it?” Spencer asks innocently.

“When did I agree to not go in the first place?” you ask as you drop your hands to your lap.

“When the tears began to rise in your eyes,” Spencer states.

“And how do you know that?” you sniff.

“Because they’re tears of guilt. Guilt you have no business feeling, but guilt nonetheless.”

And he was right.

“It’s like I’m not enough. Like I’m not enough of a mom to...to handle all of this,” you admit quietly.

“It’s because you aren’t taking care of yourself, Y/N,” Spencer urges as he gets up and sits on the couch next to you, “You aren’t sleeping when you need to or eating proper meals. You’re relying on caffeine for your energy and you refuse to let anyone step in. You’re neglecting regular showers and you won’t let me cook-”

Sighing heavily, you feel Spencer grasp your shoulder as he turns your body towards him.

“I’m here...to _help_ you. There’s no shame in that,” Spencer murmurs lowly.

“I’ve never been good at willingly taking help,” you snicker.

“I can see that,” Spencer says through a smile.

“Ok,” you nod as you lean back into the couch, your legs coming around and settling in Spencer’s lap as you close your eyes, “I’ll just take a light nap now, but when the appointment starts, you need to call me, ok?”

“That’s all I’m asking,” Spencer says, rubbing your clothed legs with his hand as he watches you quickly drift off to sleep.

You slept so hard that you didn’t hear your phone ring with your video-chat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I’m so sorry I didn’t hear your call,” you say yet again as Spencer shakes his head at the stove.

“It’s _fine_. I’m glad you got some rest,” Spencer says as he stirs the pot before throwing the penne pasta into the vat of boiling water.

“Ugh,” you groan as you put your head in your hands.

“You’re so hard on yourself, you know that?” Spencer says as he pulls the pot of sauce off of the stove.

“That’s my morning mantra,” you joke as you hear Spencer chuckle behind you.

“Well, you look much better...even just with a nap.”

“You tryna tell me I’m sexy, Dr. Reid?” you muse playfully as you turn your body to face him, seeing his shoulders pull taut.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur as you backtrack, “I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s fine,” Spencer says quickly as he throws the cooked meat into the sauce, “nothing to worry about.”

“Spencer, if I made you uncomfortable-”

“Y/N. Cut it out. It’s fine.”

You felt your jaw clench as you lean back into the kitchen seat.

“I’m gonna go wash up,” you murmur lightly as you raise up quickly from the chair.

Hearing Spencer sigh, you make a quick dash for the hallway as you feel something catch your arm.

“Y/N...” Spencer trails off.

“I didn’t mean to make you upset or uncomfortable. I was just trying to lighten the mood,” you admit with your back to him.

“Y/N...look at me,” Spencer urges as you slowly turn your body towards him, your brow furrowed in worry and hesitation.

“There aren’t any...any words...to describe what just happened,” he says as he motions back into the kitchen with his head.

“I don’t...I don’t understand,” you admit as your brow furrows deeper.

“Then maybe this’ll clear it up.”

Watching his face slowly approach yours, you watch as his eyes close, his lips lightly connecting with yours as your eyes stay open, studying his face as he slowly pulls back.

The reaction on your face must have denoted some sort of mistake.

“I’m sorry. I just-...uh, I’m just gonna-”

But he didn’t get to finish his sentiment before your hands had grabbed the front of his t-shirt, gripping the fabric tightly as you pull him desperately into you, his lips crashing with a fury against yours as you smash your tongue into his mouth, feeling his arms slip tightly around your waist, pulling you as close to his body as he could physically get you.

As your teeth clatter together and your lips burn from the pressure, your tongues dance in a desperate tango well overdue for its intended audience.

Puffing through your nose as the two of you breathe each other’s air, you slip your arms tightly around his neck as your hand migrates to his hair, grasping a handful of the beautiful tendrils as Spencer turns you and plods you into the hallway wall.

You lift your legs and lock them around his waist before smoke starts to lightly cloud the kitchen.

“Ugh,” you groan quietly as you lob your head against the wall, feeling Spencer trail kisses down your cheek and jawline as he peppers your exposed neck.

Your hands find his shoulders as you fist the t-shirt cloth draping his body.

His body that you so desperately wanted to feel.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” Spencer murmurs into your skin as he wraps his arms around your body, hoisting you from the wall and walking you back into the kitchen.

“By the looks of the smoke, I’d say it’s already done,” you murmur as you wrap yourself tightly around him, burying your face into his neck as you memorize his smell.

“It’s just the evaporating water from the noodles. Nothing serious,” he breathes, reaching out and stirring the noodles as you continue to cling to him.

It was as if you weighed nothing in his arms.

“I have stretch-marks,” you admit.

“Hmm?” Spencer hums as you feel his hands sprawl along your back.

“I have stretch marks. From having Wilder. And some loose skin around my inner thighs.”

“Seems normal for a woman who’s had a child,” Spencer says matter-of-factly as he pulls his head back and places a kiss on your cheek.

“I just...wanted you to know. You know, ahead of time...so you weren’t...you know, grossed out or surprised or anything.”

“Why would I be grossed out?” Spencer asks as he sits down in a kitchen chair.

“I don’t know. I mean, that’s not the attractive thing for girls. Right?” you ask with your face still buried in his neck.

“Y/N...look at me,” Spencer urges.

“No,” you pout.

“Come on,” he chuckles, grasping your shoulders and pulling you out in front of him.

“You’re beautiful to me. From the way you talk to the way you love your sons to the way your hair swishes lightly whenever you walk. Everything about you, above and below your clothes, is perfect.”

“How could you know that, though?” you ask sheepishly, shrugging your shoulders as your saddened eyes meet his.

“Do you trust my gut?” he asks.

“What?” you snicker.

“My gut feelings. You know, when we’re in the field?”

“Of course. Your gut feelings have saved us on more than one occasion,” you state, your eyes dancing between his as you rear up on his lap.

“Then trust it now,” he breathes, settling his hands on your thighs as he squeezes them reassuringly, “trust it now.”

And as you smile lightly at him, your head leaning back down onto his shoulder as he threads his arms around you and begins to rub your back, Spencer eyes the noodles about to boil over as he hops up, setting you on your feet as he dashes to take the pot off of the stove.

“I’ll drain this water and then dinner’ll be ready,” he says as he shoots you a smile over his shoulder.

“My hero,” you breathe mockingly as you hear Spencer giggle.

And as he turns around moments later, a steaming hot plate of noodles and meaty Alfredo sauce, you take the plate from him as he opens the oven, sliding the garlic bread out and on to the table.

“We eating for the whole team?” you ask as he sits down with his plate in his hand.

“Nope,” he says as he grabs for a piece of bread, “but we will need our energy.”

“What for?” you ask as you place a forkful of noodles into your mouth.

And all Spencer answered you with was a wink.


	15. Climax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for smut.

Spencer was there.

He was there the morning the doctors took the wirings out of Wilder’s mouth.

He was there the last time you guys filled their prescription bottles of pain killers.

He was there during the nights where he would come barreling from the guest room, hearing you thrashing around in your sleep as he tried to shake you from your nightmares.

He was there even when he couldn’t, wrapping his arms tightly around you as you grunted and groaned.

And now? He was still here, helping you have the courage to let your sons get in the van as they sling they backpacks in the back, setting off their last couple of months of school.

You held onto his hand, with everything you had, as the tips of his fingers turned red, then white...then blue...as you smiled while choking back tears as you waved your sons off as they backed out of the driveway.

You had never been so scared for their lives, them finally making their way off to school without you.

Without you.

Without you to see them.

Without you to feed them.

Without you to bathe them or talk to them or run your fingers through their hairs as they fell asleep.

Without you to watch over them...

“Y/N? Are you alright?”

That’s when you realized you were shaking.

“Come on. Let’s get you inside,” Spencer coos, tugging your hand as you crane your neck, watching DeShawn turn on his right blinker and turn off of your street.

Your lonely, protected street.

“I can get us some more coffee,” Spencer urges as he helps you up the step and into the house, watching to make sure you don’t trip.

“You think they’re...they’re gonna...be ok?” you breathe, turning your desperate eyes to Spencer as he brings his free hand up to cup your face.

And that’s when you heard your phone vibrate.

“I got it,” you whisper, pulling away from Spencer’s warmth as you backtrack quickly and search for your phone.

Swiping open the screen, you see a text message scrawling across your screen as you snicker, smile, and wipe the tears as they begin to fall.

“Everything ok?” Spencer asks as he smirks, leaning against the doorway as you bring your hand to your mouth.

**Don’t worry, Ma. Sweet cheek’s got baby boy. We’re gonna be alright.**

“DeShawn,” you breathe, a smile peeling across your face.

You were so entranced with the message that you didn’t see Spencer take his own phone out of his pocket, type a quick message, and send it before dropping it back into his robe.

The message?

**Thanks, guys. I think she’ll be ok now.**

“Come on,” Spencer says as he motions his head towards the kitchen table, “sit down. I’ll make breakfast.”

“You’ve been making breakfast for the past 2 months.”

“6 weeks 4 days,” Spencer smiles as he walks over to the fridge.

“My point is, I can make breakfast for us,” you say as you walk up behind him, wrapping your arms around his bent waist as you press a kiss in the middle of his back.

It was the first sign of affection the two of you had shown since...well...noodle night.

You felt Spencer tense underneath your touch.

Rearing back up quickly, you clench your fists at your side as you clear your throat.

“Uh...breakfast sounds good. I’ll get dinner,” you breathe, turning and shuffling around the corner, making a break for your room as your nerves begin to set in once more.

“Shower,” you whisper to yourself as you plow into your bedroom, “shower sounds good.”

Peeling your clothes away from your skin you drop them to the floor as you make your way for the bathroom.

That is, until you hear a knock at the door.

Freezing in your place, you feel your entire naked body flush red as you stand as still as you can.

“I can still see you,” Spencer says lowly.

You had never heard that tone of voice drip from his lips.

You didn’t know what to say.

So instead...you slowly turned around...bearing your entire body to him as his eyes slowly rake over your body.

“What are you doing?” you breathe.

“Well...I was going to make pancakes,” Spencer says as he pushes himself off of your doorway, slowly approaching you as he holds up his hand.

And from his finger, a bottle of syrup was swinging.

“But I realized, pancakes weren’t what I wanted,” he says as your eyes connect heavily with his.

You could no longer tell what color his eyes were, what for the girth of his pupils.

You began to wonder about the girth of other things...

“Well then..why-...why are you uh, holding syrup?” you ask as you swallow hard.

It was then that he closed the rest of the distance, his free hand slowly skimming your skin as he wraps it around your back and places it in the dip of your spine.

“Because I want my syrup on something else,” Spencer says lowly, your eyes widening as a smirk spreads across his cheeks.

“If any of this makes you uncomfortable,” Spencer whispers before dipping his lips to your ear, “say ‘pancake’,” he whispers.

But all you did was lean your ear into his lips as you nod, feeling him kiss it lightly as your skin begins to pucker.

It was then that his arms rushed around you, the syrup plummeting to the floor as he picks you up and throws you on your bed, your naked body bouncing as he quickly begins shedding his clothing before placing his knees on your mattress.

Leaning up on your elbows as you eye him wildly, you watch his primal features charge your body as his lips crash into yours, your body igniting a fire within your toes that slowly began to burn up your legs.

The two of you couldn’t keep your lips off of each other.

He kissed your lips, and your cheeks. He licked your jawline and sucked on your neck. He nipped at your collarbone and trailed wet lip blots down your chest.

But when he got to your beautifully puckered peaks, he stopped.

“Hmmmm...” he hums as he rears off of your body, your lips whimpering for him before you hear a top click open.

“Spencer?” you ask.

But before you could open your eyes, you feel the cool sensation of something being poured over your breasts, your stomach jumping at the cold sensation, you feel it travel down your stomach, pooling in your naval before the sensation randomly stops.

“Mmmmmm,” you hear Spencer hum as you open your eyes and study the ceiling.

You felt exposed.

Weak.

Nervous.

But you also felt alive.

Beautiful.

_Loved..._

Watching Spencer’s face appear in your vision, you see his devilish grin has morphed into a soft smile as he lips dip into yours.

You smiled into his warm, wet kiss.

“You alright?” you whispers against your lips.

“Yeah,” you whisper back, smiling as your yes flutter open.

“Good,” Spencer muses lowly, that same devious glint in his eye returning as he dips his head down to your breasts.

Feeling his lips curl around your nipple, you arch your back and moan lightly as your heels dig into your mattress as Spencer hums around your swollen peak.

“So much better than pancakes...” he murmurs into your skin.

“God... _bless_...” you bite.

“The only name you’ll utter,” Spencer growls as you open your eyes and look down at him, “is mine.”

And that’s when he switched breasts, suckling the syrup off of that one before biting down. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to prove that he was in control.

That this was his time...and no one else’s.

You got the message loud and clear.

“Oh, Spencer,” you moan as you lightly raise your hips into him.

“Good girl,” he smiles slyly.

You smiled at his praise as his mouth slowly trails down, lapping at the sweet, decadent syrup that was trickling down your body as you squirm underneath his teasing warmth.

You wanted to feel his skin against yours...

Suddenly, you’re ripped from your wantonly thoughts as you feel your legs slowly being spread.

“Spencer...?” you breathe.

Feeling his sticky lips descend upon your inner thigh, you involuntarily buck towards him, begging him to be where you wished he was.

“Sssshhhh...” he hushes against your skin, making your legs pucker up as your glistening slick begins to reveal itself to him.

“I’m gonna take my time with you,” he murmurs as he switches thighs, sucking another beautifully aching hickey into your thigh as you moan and squirm and buck.

“Spencer...” you breathily moan.

Feeling his hands slowly trail up to your folds, he parts them, taking in your glistening state as your chest begins to heave with air, his lips puckering as he blows cool air on your most sensitive area, making you jump as he chuckles lightly.

“I wanna feel you,” you admit, your voice strained as you swallow hard.

“Please...” you desperately plead.

And then? An idea struck Spencer.

“Well...I wanna _taste_ you,” he says as he licks his lips before dipping in to you, licking a stripe from your slicked entrance all the way up to your clit before flattening his tongue upon it, causing your entire body to tense up.

“Uuuuuh...Spenceeeeer...” you draw out.

“So...we can compromise,” he says as he begins to re-position himself, his knees settling against your shoulders as his engorged erection slowly comes into view, the slicked head of his dick hanging just above your lips.

“Oh god, yes,” you whisper, grasping his hips and opening your mouth, pulling him down into you as his balls settle right onto your nose.

You felt your fingertips lecherously dig into the meet of his hips as his mouth dips between your legs, his voice moaning into your wetness as his hands spread your legs at the knees, baring down and parting you open for the world.

Oh, what a dream this was.

Suckling him down as you take a shallow breath through your nose, your hands begin to rub around the slope of his ass, feeling as much of his as you can as you slowly begin to feel him pumping in and out of you.

The bucking you were doing against his face was almost rabid.

“Oh, Spencer,” you moaned as his dick muffled your cries, “Oh, fuck!”

Hearing his lips suck and lap at your pussy, his spit and your juices intermingling as they drop down your ass crack and pool underneath you, you feel the burn igniting behind your abdomen as you begin to cry out and dig your fingers into the back of Spencer’s thighs.

“Yes! Please, please, please, please...mmmmmmm, please, Spencer...”

“Yes. That’s it. God, Y/N...” Spencer says as he sucks and licks at your clit, his hands sliding up your thighs as he peels your lips apart with his fingers.

And that’s when he found your sweet spot.

Feeling the entire back of your throat relax in pleasure as your orgasm quickly begins to build, you clamp down onto Spencer’s ass as you pull him all the way down, his hips connecting with your face as he gives your pussy one last lick before sucking our clit in betwen your lips.

“Oooooooooooooh,” he groans into your pussy, sending you over the edge as your legs grow taut and your throat begins to pulsate around his dick.

Your entire body was trembling at his lips.

“Y/N. Yes. Oh, god...yes,” you hear him whisper, his hips stilling as his muscles tense up underneath your fingers, feeling his milky white offering slide down your throat as your legs flop off to the side, his hair tickling your thighs as he continues to pump down your throat.

“Uuuuuuuuuuuh...” he croaks throatily before collapsing on top of you, his throbbing length slowly shrinking down as it retracts on its own from your throat as your body goes limp, your hands settling on the back of his calves as his softened length dangles in your mouth.

You didn’t care about the spit running down your cheek.

“I love you,” you hear Spencer murmur as he takes his nose and nuzzles lightly at your oversensitive, swollen entrance, making you jump underneath him as you smile lightly, prompting him to slowly pull himself out of your mouth.

“Who knew you were such a freak,” you mumble around his flaccid dick, swallowing the last of him down as he reluctantly rolls off of your body.

“Was it too much?” he asks, laying his hand on your shin as his thumb traces mindless circles upon your flushed and sweaty skin.

“If anything, it wasn’t enough,” you breathe, prompting Spencer to raise up in bed and look at you.

“What?” he asks, thoroughly shocked at your statement.

“You’ve been here for me through, what I can honestly say it, the worst thing I have ever endured in my life. You never got upset with me when I neglected myself, and you never saw it as a burden to come and help.”

His facial expressions softened as you roll over onto your side, crooking yourself so you can see him and still cover your body.

“You’re beautiful, Y/N,” he says lightly as he raises up on his knees, crawling towards you as he peels your arms back from your chest.

“Still better than pancakes?” you ask as a smirk graces your cheeks, your legs still sticky with sweat as Spencer buries the two of you underneath your covers.

“Always,” he grins as he shimmies down beside you.

“Thank you,” you breathe as you lose yourself in his beautiful eyes.

“For everything,” you whisper as you bring your hand up to cup his face.

“I mean it, you know,” Spencer says.

“I know,” you breathe as you nod lightly against the pillow, “and so do I.”

“So...what are we?” Spencer asks.

“Ah, the timeless question,” you quip as you roll over onto your back.

“It’s a reasonable one, seeing as what we just did,” Spencer says as he rolls with you, his body shrouding you from your room as his face dips so close you can still smell you on his lips.

“I don’t know what I am to you,” you as as you spread your legs, feeling his body dip down closer to you, “but you’re mine,” you whisper as your lips lightly encompass his as your tongue swirls around his lips, lapping yourself off of him.

“Good,” he says as he brings his hips back, lining up his surprising erection with your entrance as he quickly slides into you, causing your eyes to widen as your back arches off of the bed, a muffled groan emanating from your throat as Spencer hisses air through his teeth.

“Because you’re mine, too,” he bends down and whispers into your ear.

“Make love to me,” you lightly whisper, desperation dripping from your lips as you lock your legs around Spencer’s hips.

“Gladly,” he groans, slowly beginning to rock his hips as your hands rush to his back, pawing at his skin as he buries his face into the crook of your neck.

The rest of the morning was filled with silent whispers and breathy moans, the ghosts of your groans and pants squeezing the life out of the four walls the two of you had barricaded yourself within, as desperate for each other as you were to make up the time the two of you had lost.

And not another worry was given to the protection of your boys.


	16. Coping

The next day, trying your best to cover up your limping, both you and Spencer return to work. The side-glances he keeps giving you in the elevator as you attempt to adjust your work pants make you even more flustered, causing you to pull your hair back into a hair-tie as the elevator doors spring open.

“Y/N!” Garcia squeaks as she shuffles quickly towards you, wrapping you in her arms as she presses her prominent chest deep into you, “Oh my gosh, you’re finally back! J.J. and I have missed you at girls’ nights. W-w-...we wanted to call and ask, but-”

Holding up your hand as Morgan approaches your side, you smile lightly as you give him a side-hug, slowly feeling him wrap both around around your shoulders and pull you close.

“How you doin’, pretty girl?” he asks.

You recognized the name-change, similar to Spencer’s nick-name, but still uniquely yours.

“Garcia...it’s fine,” you smile as you turn towards Morgan, his arms falling to his sides.

“You guys already know?” you breathily ask as Rossi approaches you from behind.

“Reid took multiple weeks off to stay and help. Yes, Y/L/N...we know,” he chuckles as he places his hand between your shoulder blades, patting your back lightly as you shake your head.

“You think Hotch is gonna be against it?” you ask as your eyes drift over to Spencer, his body already standing close to his boss’s as J.J. approaches you and takes your hand.

“I think Reid’s already taking care of that angle,” she smiles lightly as he pulls you from the crowd, pulling you close into a hug.

“How’re those boys?” she asks as she rubs her hands up and down your back.

“Good. Healing. Happy to be back at school. Have some of their independence back,” you sigh as you try to hold back your tears.

“And how’s mom handling that development?” Hotch asks as Spencer and him walk up, Spencer’s hands in his pockets as a wide smile graces his beautiful face.

That face you rode so many times yesterday...

“Well-...”

Looking up at the main office, the wide television screen that had first started this entire nightmare of a debacle, you swallow hard as you feel something creep into your hand.

Something that squeezes down...almost in reassurance.

Ripping you from your trance, your eyes pan over to Spencer, his kind features entranced upon your face as his brow lightly furrows as he reaches out his thumb, wiping away a tear that you didn’t realize was slowly making its way down your face.

“Hey,” Hotch coos lowly as he places his hand on your shoulder, your gaze ripping over to him as he looks at you tenderly, his gaze filled with worry and understanding.

“Walking into this office’ll get easier. I promise,” he reassures you.

“I know it doesn’t feel like that now,” J.J. interjects as he places her hand lightly on your upper arm, “but it will.”

“In the meantime,” Spencer says as he pulls your hand he’s still holding, ushering you over to a computer as he jiggles the mouse, “I have something I want to show you.”

“Wha-...what is it?” you breathe, wiping the tears from your eyes as Spencer grasps you around your waist, tugging you into his lap as you fall with a plop, your eyes widening as they dart over to Aaron.

“It’s alright,” he coos with a gleam in his eye, “...for now.”

Nodding curtly, Garcia reaches over your shoulder and hits the space-bar, playing a video as your jaw unhinges.

It was your boys.

Your two, beautiful boys.

“Hey mom!” Wilder and DeShawn say in unison as they wave at the camera.

“So...Spencer said you’d have a tough time-” Wilder begins as DeShawn nudges him with his elbow.

“He said not to mention that,” DeShawn roughly whispers.

The transaction caused you to giggle lightly as Spencer’s arms slide around your waist, pulling your back close to his chest.

“Alright...” Wilder drawls out, turning his attention back to the camera, “well...we all thought that you might struggle. You know, going back to work and us back to school, and we want you to know that you don’t have to worry. The police at the school take really good care of us, and while you are away working, we’ve arranged a system!”

“Yeah, a system,” DeShawn says as he nods.

You feel your brow furrowing as you watch your strong son take over.

“Whenever you’re away on a case, we’re gonna do what your boss and J.J. had their babysitters do.”

Turning your head towards them, they nod their heads back to the computer, urging you to pay attention.

“Every morning we’re gonna text you when we wake up, and every evening once we settle down in bed we will call you on the phone.”

“Even if it’s just to leave a voice message,” Wilder interjects, a broad smile on his face.

His beautiful, unwired face.

“And during the day, every time we eat, we’re gonna shoot you text messages. You know, pictures of us with open mouths of food, or slathering ketchup on our mashed potatoes. You know...the good stuff,” DeShawn chuckles, smiling his beautiful, pearly-white smile against his ebony skin.

“And we promise,” DeShawn says.

“No matter _what_ ,” Wilder adds.

“That none of this was your fault,” your boys say in unison, their eyes intent on the camera in front of them, envisioning you watching this video, your shaking body on top of the man you love, surrounded by the people who supported you most.

And as you lean your elbows onto the desk, your face covering your hands as you sob into your palms, you feel Spencer lean his body forward, placing his forehead onto your back as he peppers you with kisses, his hands rubbing up and down your achingly sore thighs as he murmurs the one thing you love to hear drip from his lips.

“I love you, Y/N,” he whispers in between his kisses, “and everything’s gonna be alright.”


	17. Epilogue

“Are you sure you don’t want me going with you guys?” you ask as your sons shove the last of their things into the trunk of their cars.

Both of the vehicles, checked out by both Hotch and Rossi before you took them to a professional, were their graduation gifts.

“Mom. We’re fiiiiiine,” Wilder says, rolling his eyes as he shakes his head.

“Besides,” DeShawn jumps in as he slams his trunk door shut, “Wilder and I are making it a road trip. We aren’t due in NYC for another week.”

The team had collectively given them gifts, and between the money they saved up from their jobs throughout high school and the money they ultimately got from Rossi, they had decided to fly the coop a few days early so they could see a bit of the country in which they lived.

Spencer was whole-heartedly for the journey.

But you were still a bit apprehensive.

“Don’t forget these!” Spencer calls behind you, dashing out of the house as he waves charger chords in his hand.

“Whoa! Good call, Dad,” Wilder says as he grabs for his chords, DeShawn quickly in suit as they toss them into the backseats of their cars.

“Told you they needed another run-through,” Spencer murmurs in your ear as you smirk and shake your head.

“Are you sure about this?” you ask nervously as you tilt your head to the side, looking up at Spencer as he leans down and kisses your forehead before draping his arm around your waist.

“I made them promise that at every stop they make they would send you a picture, as well as give us the address of the hotel they were bunking in,” Spencer coos.

“Yep. Pa’s got us all good to go so that you ain’t gotta worry, Ma,” DeShawn says as he strides up, opening his arms to you as he takes you tightly in his grasp.

You didn’t want to let go of your little boy.

“Oh, sweet cheeks,” you breathe into his shoulder, trying to blink back your tears as DeShawn rubs his hands up and down your back.

“We’re gonna be ok, Ma,” he says lowly in your ear.

“I know,” you breathe as you hold him out with your hands, your tear-rimmed eyes flickering over his grown face as you nod your head curtly.

“You guys are gonna have way too much fun this summer,” you snicker as you smile.

“Always,” Wilder says, coming up behind DeShawn as your son steps to the side, wrapping Spencer in a hug as Wilder wraps his arms around your body and picks you up for a massive hug.

“I love you, Mom,” Wilder breathes.

“Oh, my baby boy...” you hiccup, squeezing him around his neck tight as you hold onto your little boy.

Flashes of his birth were wafting through your mind.

Flashes of your 15 year old body being ripped in two as he was brought into the world.

Flashes of holding him close at 3 am as he latched onto your breast, suckling with desperation as he ate.

Flashes of him and DeShawn running around in the yard, jumping in mud puddles and running in the rain.

Flashes of them being sick in their beds and wanting to climb in with you during crashing thunderstorms.

Visions of their growing smiles and their barreling laughter and their ice cream-smudged noses and their dirty diapers and their bed wetting and their first report cards.

They were no longer your boys.

They were your men.

And they were finding their way in this world just like you had done so many years ago.

“Mom,” Wilder chokes out as you come back to reality, letting go of your son’s neck as you drop back down to your feet.

“Sorry,” you breathe, smiling an embarrassed smile as Wilder plants a kiss onto your head before stepping over and giving Spencer a massive hug.

“Thanks, Dad,” he mumbles into Spencer’s ear.

“Anytime,” Spencer whispers, trying to hold back a few tears of his own as Wilder pulls out and puts his hands on Spencer’s shoulders.

“Take care of her,” Wilder implores, staring Spencer directly in his eyes as Spencer nods his head.

“I will,” he promises.

Sniffling as you watch your boys backtrack to their cars, you feel Spencer pull you close around your shoulders as you wrap your arm around his waist, leaning your head into his chest as you watch your boys...no...your men...get into their cars as they both crank up their engines.

“Next stop!” Wilder yells as he sticks his head out of the driver side window as DeShawn rolls down his.

“Walmart!” Wilder croons.

“What!?” DeShawn yelps as he furrows his brow, clicking his tongue as he sticks his head out the window.

“I don’t have deodorant, dude!” Wilder yells as you bring your hand to your face to stifle a bout of laughter.

“Love you, Mom!” Wilder yells one last time before sitting and and beginning to pull out of the driveway.

“Love you guys!” DeShawn yells as well, pulling out of the driveway behind Wilder as the two of them slowly roll down the street, flicking on their respective right turn signals as they pull off of your street and lose themselves behind a patch of houses.

And after settling your patch of laughter, you drawn in a deep breath through your nose as Spencer starts to rub your arm with his hand wrapped around you.

“They’re gonna be alright?” you breathe, looking up at him for reassurance as he drops his tear-stained face down to look at you.

You found yourself stepping in front of him, raising your thumbs to his cheeks as you wipe the tears from his face.

“Oh yeah. They’re gonna be just fine,” Spencer sighs.

And as the two of you turn towards the open front door of your home, the home that Spencer had moved in to not three weeks ago after both of your sons insisted that he might as well since he was over so often, you both heave a collective sigh as you both turn to look at each other through your tired eyes.

“Well. What now?” you ask.

And just as Spencer was going to suggest a hot bath, both of your cell phones began to vibrate at your hips.

“No rest for the weary,” Spencer says as he plucks his phone from his hip, opening the text message that held Garcia’s beckoning for the team to assemble at the office.

“Hot bath afterwards?” you smirk as you step into the house to grab your car keys.

“Hot bath afterwards,” Spencer confirms as he locks the front door before following you to your car.


End file.
